


One Of Us

by vintagecassette



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Eventual Comfort, Gen, I promise it'll lighten up eventually, Lies, Manipulation, Mild Blood, Panic Attack, Snakeface McGee, The angst is a little relentless, thomas sanders - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-04-29 10:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14470761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintagecassette/pseuds/vintagecassette
Summary: After the events of “Can Lying Be Good,” an unwanted guest pays a visit to Virgil’s room. If he's not careful, the memories the encounter brings back could ruin Virgil's life as he knows it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil thinks he's got some free time after filming "Can Lying Be Good." As it turns out, he couldn't be more wrong.

The first few hours after filming a video were always the quietest. Each side retreated into their respective rooms for a moment’s rest before the editing began and kicked them all back into high gear. It was a period that allowed them a short while to be truly alone — no work to do, no interruptions. This was a peaceful time, one that Virgil in particular appreciated greatly.

He spent most of these liminal minutes perched on his bed, one leg folded beneath him, with a pair of headphones draped over his ears. Sometimes it was a loud song, sometimes it was a soft one, sometimes it was just the sound of rain; anything to decompress and get himself out of his head for a while. Today, he needed this time more than ever. Seeing Deceit so close up had shaken him more than he would have liked to admit — but that didn’t matter right now. This was his chance to be alone, to think, to breathe.

That’s what he thought it would be, at least.

The first thing he noticed was a chill in the air; dramatic, unnecessary, and all too familiar. He tore the headphones from his ears and dropped them onto the bed, jumping to his feet and staring warily across the room. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.

“Hello?” he called, hoping against hope that he was wrong.

He watched, frozen, as the silver knob turned and the door eased open.

“ _Virgil_ ,” came the voice on the other side of it, silky smooth and malignant. “It really has been too long.”

“Don’t,” Virgil growled. “Don’t call me that. Don’t even try.”

The voice’s owner unfurled itself from the shadows like a cloud of smoke, a grin spread across his serpentine face. “Why not?” he asked. “I was the first you trusted with that name. I think I’ve earned my right to use it.”

“Yeah?” Virgil said, his hands curling into fists. “Well, your right has officially been revoked. You’re not welcome here anymore.”

“Unfortunate,” Deceit said. He strode closer to the other Side, and each step he took forward was countered by an infinitesimal step back. “I thought you’d want to chat.”

“You thought wrong.” Virgil tried his hardest to stand his ground, but the closer the snake came, the more he wanted to turn tail and run.

“Surely you’ve missed me,” Deceit went on, finally drawing to a halt a few feet away from his counterpart. “I’ve missed you _terribly_.”

“Get out of my room,” Virgil said in as menacing a tone as he could manage. He straightened up, aiming to intimidate, but the only response it earned him was oily laughter.

“How precious,” Deceit lilted, his voice pure syrup. “If you really don’t want me, I suppose I’ll be going…” He gestured toward the door, and it almost seemed like he planned to stick to his word.

“Wait,” Virgil said, holding up a hand and hating himself for it. “What — what do you want?”

A smirk tugged at Deceit’s lips. “Just to talk,” he assured the other. “Nothing more.”

A beat.

“...about what?”

“Plenty of things,” Deceit said, swiveling slowly on his heel to take in his surroundings. “How you’ve been getting on without me, for example.” He paused. Arched an eyebrow. “Quite well, I presume.”

Virgil bit down hard on his lip and was greeted by the tinny taste of blood. “I’ve been great,” he grumbled, “thanks for asking. Why are you really here?”

A long, timed-out silence. Deceit took a short stroll around the room, sliding a finger along dressers and shelves as though he was checking for dust. He circled the place once, then twice; there was a dangerous glint in his eye that Virgil was too preoccupied to catch.

“To warn you,” he said at last. He took a step forward. It was met by yet another in the opposite direction.

“About what?” Virgil scoffed, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his hoodie to disguise their trembling. “The only thing I should be worrying about right now is you.”

“Is that so?” Deceit inquired, feigning interest. “I think there’s a plethora of issues you’ve been neglecting. It only seemed fair that I stop by to bring them to light.”

For the first time since Deceit had arrived, Virgil forced himself to meet the other’s eye — the chill that shot down his spine as his brown eyes found that sickening yellow made him immediately regret it. “And what might these issues be?” Virgil asked. Then he gasped. In the time it had taken him to blink, Deceit had slithered up behind him, pressing a hand to his back and leaning so close to his ear that he could feel the other’s breath.

“They’re all going to find out,” Deceit whispered.

It took all of Virgil’s strength for him to wrench himself away. The force of his movement drove him into the wall, and he stayed pressed against it, gripping it for support. “K-keep your hands off me.”

“Gladly,” Deceit said, carefully adjusting his gloves. “But my point still stands.”

“No,” Virgil said. Then again, louder, shakier: “ _No_.” His heartbeat had jumped into his throat. Too fast. Too loud. Too much.

“This life you’ve built with them?” Deceit quietly hissed. “It’s all predicated on deception. You’ve made them believe that you can help. That you can change. That you’re one of them.”

Virgil’s eyes shot toward the door. He could run if he wanted. Run to Logan, who would talk him off whatever ledge Deceit was pushing him toward. Run to Patton, who would hold him tight until the threat had passed. Run to Roman, who would draw his sword and lay waste to the snake right then and there.

But he didn’t. This time, he was going to stand his ground, no matter how uneven his footing may be.

“No,” he said for a third time, but the shakiness in his voice was gone. Now, it was all power. “That’s what _your_ life with me was. Deception. Lies. _Falsehoods_ that twisted me around until I couldn’t see straight and left me with no one to turn to but you.”

Mere moments before, Deceit had seemed concerned. His eyebrows drew together, furrowed with evident worry; his lips turned downward in an apologetic frown; it was so believable, it nearly reached his mismatched eyes. The moment Virgil finished speaking, the facade melted away to reveal something much more dangerous. Again, a glint caught in Deceit’s eyes like a fire had been lit behind them; it was a sight Virgil had hoped he would never have to see again.

“You know I’m right,” he sneered, advancing with long strides until his face was mere inches from the other’s. “They’ve seen the signs. You appear without rising. You had to fight tooth and nail to force yourself into their little group. Even that dunce Patton will be able to see through you eventually.”

Virgil snapped.

“Don’t you _dare_ talk about _any_ of them like that,” he snarled. His voice was growing louder, shifting, but he did nothing to swallow it down. Without thinking, he grabbed Deceit by the shoulders and pushed as hard as his arms would allow. The snake stumbled, nearly losing his footing and gripping a shelf on the wall beside him to remain upright. All Virgil wanted was to win, just this once — to catch the other side off guard and finally knock him down.

He didn’t get so much as a blink, and it was infuriating.

“With tendencies like these,” Deceit said as he righted himself, smoothing his hands over his cape, “it’s only a matter of time before you lash out at one of _them_ , isn’t it?”

Virgil’s entire body was trembling. This was too much like it used to be; the manipulation, the lies. He wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take. “You’re wrong,” he said, putting everything he had into believing his words. “You’re _lying_. That’s your schtick, I know it now. You can’t fool me anymore, I — I won’t let you.”

“Fool you?” Deceit repeated, a grin spreading across both sides of his horrible face. “There’s no trickery to be had here, Anxiety.” The grin grew wider when Virgil flinched at the sound of his name. “You may as well come back now — quit while you’re ahead, don’t you agree? Quit before they realize who you are. _What_ you are.”

With a jolt, Virgil realized that tears were prickling at the backs of his eyes. He couldn’t take a deep enough breath.

“ _You’re one of us_.”

A stuttering breath. A lost retort. At last, with barely bottled fury: “Get. Out. Of. My. Room.”

“I wonder who will figure it out first,” Deceit mused, remaining planted where he stood. “It really is a mystery.”

Enough, enough, _enough_.

“Which do you think will turn on you first? I’d place my bets on —”

Virgil snatched up a vase from the desk behind him, pure adrenaline coursing through his veins. He drew his arm back, mustering every ounce of energy he had left in him, and pitched.

“Get. _OUT!_ ”

A shattering of glass as the vase hit the wall. A thousand echoes as the shards scattered across the bare floor. Virgil looked up, chest heaving, praying that he’d hit his mark.

Deceit was gone. He had sunk out. The adrenaline seeped away, and Virgil collapsed onto his knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may or may not be my first work on AO3 (but definitely not my first work ever), and depending on how it does, I may throw in a part two. I wrote it immediately after "Can Lying Be Good" was posted, so the hype for fics featuring Deceit has probably started to die down. Will that stop me? No, no it won't.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast is usually a peaceful time for Virgil. Today, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Virgil was the first in the kitchen the next morning. His hood was drawn up over his head in a futile effort to block out the weak sunlight that filtered through the window over the counter (the latter of which he was perched on top of, one knee folded to his chest), and his hands were wrapped tightly around a plain gray mug. The coffee inside was black and unsweetened; though Virgil couldn’t stand the taste, he had barely survived the effort it took to turn on the pot and pour.

He took a sip. Bitter and too hot. Sighing, he took another.

A door swung shut down the hall and Virgil snapped suddenly to attention, tired eyes focused on the doorway.

“Someone’s up early,” Logan observed as he strode into the room. He hardly spared Virgil a glance before reaching toward the cabinet for a mug of his own.

“I could say the same to you,” Virgil said. He kept his eyes on his knees.

Logan nodded curtly toward the clock on the microwave. “Five o’clock is my preferred wake-up time the day after filming a video,” he said, now poking around the fridge for bread and jam. “I need to compose both an efficiency plan for editing and a satisfactory sleep schedule for the next three or so days before the rest of you get out of bed and inevitably distract me.”

 _Guess I threw a wrench in that plan_ , Virgil thought, but he said nothing.

The toaster made that odd _ka-chunk_ sound as it finished with the bread and Logan deftly swept it up, spreading butter and jam on top with expert speed. “I’ll be in my room,” he said, and as quickly as he had arrived, he left, balancing his meal in one hand and scrolling through Facebook with the other. He had been too preoccupied to notice something was off.

“See you,” Virgil muttered to the tile some three feet beneath him. The warmth of his coffee didn’t quite reach his bones.

The sun kept rising, and the clock ticked on.

…

Patton was the next to turn up. He bustled in around eight with his glasses lopsided and gathered everything he needed for pancakes, rifling through cabinets and making a mess.

“Morning!” he said brightly while he heated up a pan. “How’d you sleep?”

“Fine.” Not true.

“No nightmares?” Patton was tossing pancake mix into a bowl, humming happily to himself, blind to the way Virgil tensed at his words.

“Nope.” Another lie.

Any other day, he would have thought nothing of that question. It was routine by now, it had been for weeks; a greeting, a good-natured question about his well being, and breakfast right after. Patton only engaged in this procedure with Virgil, and he never did it when the others were around. It was a quiet, considerate sort of thing. Though he’d never admit it, Virgil had come to appreciate the concern.

Today, that wasn’t the case.

“I had the funniest dream last night,” Patton recalled, busying himself with an egg and picking some lost bits of shell from the bowl. “D’you ever have those nights where your dreams just don’t make sense?”

 _Only all the time_ , Virgil thought. He gazed blankly into his mug, swirling the last dregs of coffee around the bottom with disinterest.

“So there was this _giant cat_ —”

An abrupt scraping sounded through the kitchen as Virgil’s chair pushed back from the table, and Patton faltered. “Aren’t you staying for breakfast?” he asked, gesturing toward his pan with batter-covered hands. "Virge?"

Virgil wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Pancakes are almost done.”

Why did it matter if he stayed for breakfast?

“I made you some chocolate chip!”

Virgil had been coming to breakfast for, what, a few months? It’s not like the others had missed him much during all those years when he wasn’t invited. Skipping one day was far from the end of the world, and besides, Patton had probably just made too many pancakes to feed just himself and the others, he didn’t want Virgil to stay, why would he —

 _No, shut up. That’s not true_. He shouldn’t have been thinking things like that. They were intrusive, they were wrong… right?

Patton had been staring at Virgil for so long, a pancake almost caught fire on the stove. While he rushed to tip the charred mess away from the heat, Virgil made a beeline for the door, his thoughts flying in a thousand different directions. He’d almost made it to the hall, he was in the home stretch — but of course, he wound up colliding head-on with a figure that hovered in the doorway and nearly lost his footing in the mix up.

“Looks like someone’s hurrying off to Panic’s Labyrinth,” Roman said. He grinned at himself like he couldn’t believe he’d come up with such a clever slight so early in the morning.

“Good one,” Virgil deadpanned, trying to ignore the buzzing that was steadily beginning to fill his head. “‘Scuse me.”

When Roman continued to block the doorway, Virgil exhaled impatiently and folded his arms. He considered standing straight to intimidate the other Side out of his way, but he didn’t have it in him to stop slouching.

“Move it,” he said flatly.

Roman squinted at him for a moment like he was trying to piece something together. The two stood there in some nonverbal stalemate for nearly a minute before Roman finally stepped aside. He opened his mouth, evidently ready to ask a question, but Virgil was already halfway down the hall.

“But it’s _pancake day!_ ” he heard Roman call after him. He sped up.

This was stupid. This was _beyond_ stupid. After all these months, Virgil had finally managed to kick those intrusive thoughts under the carpet, but it had taken so little to bring them back to the surface that it almost made him laugh. He shouldered open his door and let it snap shut behind him, then pressed his back against the wood, sliding heavily to the ground. Distantly, he noted his odd affinity for sitting in places that weren’t meant to be chairs.

His head wouldn’t stop buzzing. It clouded the space just behind his eyes, making the beating of his heart sound too loud in his ears and making his mouth feel dry.

 _There’s nothing to freak out over, idiot_ , Virgil thought, disgruntled. _It’s freaking pancake day. Stop whining._ He closed his eyes and let his head press against the smooth wood behind him, trying to clear his mind and failing just as miserably as he always did.

A soft _clack_ from the other side of the door drew Virgil from his thoughts. He stood, turned the knob, and peered down; a plate sat innocently at his feet, three pancakes stacked on top. It may have been his eyes playing tricks on him, but Virgil could’ve sworn the chocolate chips in the one on top were arranged into a smiley face. He picked them up, eyed them, took a bite.

Guilt tugged at his stomach. He left the plate on the ground and went back to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, let me just say that I'm beyond surprised by how well people have been responding to this. It started out as a little one-off fic on my tumblr, but after all the comments I got, I decided it was worth trying to turn it into a multi-chapter sort of deal. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Second, if you're into both the Love, Simon movie (or the book it's based off of) and Dear Evan Hansen, I've got the fic for you. It's called "Love, Evan," and I'm co-writing it with my friend, Gray. I highly recommend checking it out, and maybe taking a look at Gray's other work, too. He's pretty great at angst if you're into that.
> 
> That's all I've got to say for now. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil flashes back to the minutes following his first ever video with the other Sides. The memory is more bitter than sweet.

“You’re enough of a nuisance in our daily lives,” Roman had said, crouching down to fix his hair in the reflection on the blank TV screen. “Why don’t you scurry off and leave the performance to the, ah… _actual_ performers.”

It was the second video Virgil had ever taken part in, and his first with the other Sides. He had turned up just as the others had begun to bicker — _Strike while they’re distracted_ , he’d thought. It also happened to be a few days after New Year’s, which meant the Christmas spirit was beginning to drain from the mindscape, slowly replacing itself with the dull realization that the family had gone home and there was work to be done. While each Side rode the high of the holidays and crashed hard around January 2nd, Virgil did the opposite; in simple terms, this was his time to shine.

As he looked down on the prince who flicked at his already perfect hair without concern, Virgil’s expression puckered. “You call that a performance?” he scoffed, injecting as much malice into his tone as he could. “It was pitchy at best.”

Roman gasped theatrically, affronted, and drew himself up to his full height. Each Side technically stood the same distance off the ground, but the way the prince carried himself made him feel at least six feet tall up close. The sword that hung by his waist did nothing to soften the view.

“Now, Anxiety,” Patton cut in, hurrying over from his spot by the shades. Logan followed him at a calculated distance, waiting for an indicator to intervene. “There’s no need to be mean.”

 _No need to be mean?_ Virgil thought disdainfully. _Prince started it. What would you call_ him, _exactly? Warm and kind?_

Patton was still talking, oblivious to the silence that was stretching itself between the other two. “Why don’t we all just take a deep breath, okay?”

“I don’t remember asking for your input,” Virgil said. The subtle hurt that settled itself behind Patton’s eyes nearly made him break; instead of giving in, he let his lip curl into a sneer, watching with twisted pride as they both shrank away from him. This was good. This was how it should be.

“Excuse me, Sunshine,” Roman said, recovering first and taking a defensive step forward. “It’s not my fault you’re too dense to comprehend my creative genius.”

“Roman…” Patton began uncertainly, but Virgil’s blood was already boiling.

“Dense,” he repeated. He cocked his head to one side and willed himself to come up with a quick and effective insult. “Funny, I didn’t realize we were coming up with adjectives to describe you.”

“Anxiety!” Patton said, his voice stern. Virgil guessed he had succeeded. “If you’re not going to play nice —”

“When have I ever played nice?” Virgil said scornfully. _Maybe fifteen years ago, when I thought you all wanted to be my friends_ , he thought, and now his fists were clenched and his jaw was set and this was so, so stupid.

“That’s enough,” Logan said, and everyone jumped; they seemed to have forgotten he was there. For a moment, Virgil almost let himself be relieved — maybe he finally had some backup.

Then he realized that Logan’s eyes were fixed only on him.

“We need to prepare for the editing process,” Logan said, back rigid and arms folded. “Now is not the time for petty debates.”

“Your mom is petty,” Virgil grumbled under his breath.

“Right as ever, Specs,” Roman agreed, evidently not having heard. “We’ve got work to do. So long!” With that, he sank out, leaving the rest of them trapped in uneasy quiet.

Virgil rolled his eyes and let out a chuckle he hoped was nonchalant. “Can’t wait to see the comments on this video. ‘ _That guy can’t carry a tune to save his life. Who does he think he’s kidding?_ ’ It’ll be great for a laugh, don’t you think?” _Please don’t let that happen. I don’t want that to happen_.

Logan ignored him. “I should get planning,” he said. Then there were two.

There wasn’t a word to describe the expression on Patton’s face. At its base level, it was confusion, but a dozen other emotions flickered through it, each of them strangely pained, changing so fast that Virgil almost felt dizzy watching.

“What’re you looking at?” he asked. Though he tried his best to sound intimidating, it almost came out like a genuine question.

Patton chewed at the inside of his lip and took a breath, but at the last possible second, he seemed to change his mind. He left, eyes cast toward the floor, and the moment he vanished Virgil groaned in defeat.

“This isn’t _working_ ,” he muttered, dragging his hands down his face and smudging his eyeshadow. He made to brush his hands off on his hoodie; midway through the movement, however, he froze. The temperature had dropped so suddenly and so much that Virgil could nearly see his breath.

“It will,” came a voice from somewhere he couldn’t see, “in time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, darling.”

Rome. _Roman_. The mere thought of him made Virgil want to put his fist through a wall. Why did that egotistical Disney knock-off think he was so special? He could say whatever he wanted, no matter how pointless or hurtful, and when Virgil retaliated, _he_ was the one who was antagonized. At least when Virgil spoke his mind, he told the truth.

“I can help you,” Deceit whispered. His voice echoed as if the whole room was made of stone despite the low ceiling and carpeted floor. “Give me time, and they will respect you. They will _fear_ you. Just like I promised. All you have to do is follow the plan.”

Virgil strode pensively toward his little landing by the wall and sat on the steps. _Fear him_ … in truth, he wasn’t sure if that was something he wanted, but what other choice did he have? He’d tried playing nice. He’d tried contributing. He’d even tried helping. For years, all his efforts earned him were odd looks and averted gazes; as time wore on, they were warped into angered outbursts and outright intolerance.

“ _We are handling this just fine without you_.”

“ _Is it really so difficult to stay in your lane?_ ”

“ _No, stop that, you’re making Thomas upset!_ ”

There was something broken inside him, something that had been knocked off-kilter and made him… different. From the Sides, from Deceit. All Virgil could see when he looked at the world was danger — that sunlight could give Thomas skin cancer, that cute stranger could lure him away, that meal could be poisoned. Don’t touch it, look at it, eat it, it could hurt him.

“ _That’s irrational_.”

“ _You can’t just keep him from doing_ anything _fun_.”

“ _Stop worrying, let Thomas have a good time!_ ”

He was doing his job, and what did it get him? Pain. Hatred. Anger. The only one who had made an effort to understand was Patton, and even he was starting to turn against him. This was the only choice Virgil had left. If they couldn’t accept him, they would fear him, and that would be enough.

It had to be enough.

“Just… tell me what to do,” he said, his voice gravel.

“So much rage,” Deceit cooed. Virgil swore he could feel the snake’s breath on his neck, but upon swiveling around, nobody was there. “We’ll fix that soon enough.”

“Tell me what to do,” Virgil repeated. "Please."

Though the voice seemed to slither around the room, Virgil couldn’t follow its path with his eyes. “You’re doing everything just right,” it said. “Take that rage and use it. Wear them down. When the day finally comes for you to win — and you _will_ win — I’m certain not a single one of them will see it coming. They will bend to your will. You can finally keep Thomas safe.”

 _Safe_.

“You’re… sure this will work?”

“Completely,” Deceit assured him. “Self preservation is what keeps Thomas alive. He’ll never reject us.”

Virgil blinked. “Us?” He had never imagined word could strike him so sharply. Suddenly, he wasn’t a singular entity; he was included in something, part of a group, a _we_ instead of a _him_. An unfamiliar sensation started to pull at the corner of his mouth. It took him a moment to realize that it was a smile.

“You’re right,” he said, nodding to himself like it would convince him further. “We can make things better.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Deceit said. “You’re doing so wonderfully. Keep it up.”

With that, the room turned warm again. Virgil knew he was alone — but the feeling wasn’t as empty as it had been when the Sides left him. In fact, he almost felt… good. He had a purpose now, and somebody was going to help him fulfill it. After all those years of having his presence loathed and his ideas rejected, after all that time spent feeling less than worthless, he had a game plan. A way to make them hear him. He wouldn’t be the weak one anymore.

He was going to win, and when he did, they would all be sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew a lot of inspiration for this chapter from fics and theories I've read over the past few months on tumblr. I went back to look at some of them again, but me being the idiot I am, I never reblogged any of them, so they've been lost in the depths of my likes. With luck, this amalgam of ideas will do them justice.
> 
> Also, I want to say again how cool it is that so many of you have read my work. Thank you all so much for this weirdly massive amount of support!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton manages to coax Virgil out of his room for movie night. Things don't go according to plan.

Virgil hadn’t left his room since two in the afternoon, when he slipped into the kitchen to scavenge for lunch while the others were preoccupied. (Logan was still hacking away at a schedule, Roman had taken it upon himself to belt out the entirety of the _Les Misérables_ soundtrack in his room, and Patton was setting up the commons for movie night.)

He’d had enough time now to clear his head, though he hadn’t quite managed to shake a lingering sort of discomfort in his chest. Reading couldn’t dispel it, music couldn’t brush it off, and sitting in silence just made the feeling worse. He settled for scrolling blankly through his phone around five o’clock — as soon as he did, he was distracted by a quiet knock at the door.

“Who is it?” he called, sitting up as best he could and scooting to the edge of his bed.

The door eased open to reveal a cat-sweater-clad Patton hovering in the hall. “Hey!” he said, very pointedly avoiding looking at the spider curtains over the window. “Are you ready for movie night?”

“Yeah, no,” Virgil said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m… I think I might pass on that tonight.”

“Hey now,” Patton said. “I’m not letting you miss pancake day _and_ movie night! I think you spent enough time in here today.” He watched quietly for a moment as Virgil fiddled with the sleeve of his hoodie, seeming to consider something. “Can I come in?”

“No,” Virgil said, too fast. He breathed in through his nose and tried again. “No, you don’t need to, I… I’ll be right there.”

“Alrighty,” Patton said, flashing him a smile. “We’re watching _Black Cauldron!_ I know it’s your favorite.”

Virgil let his sleeve fall from between his fingers. “Thanks, Pat,” he said quietly. The other gave him a wave and bounced off down the hall.

It had been months since anyone had tried to come into his room. Whenever one of them did, Virgil immediately turned them away; he hated watching the fear creep into their eyes the longer they stayed.

While he wasn’t exactly fond of the fact that the only way to keep Patton out, it had been a while since he’d watched a Disney movie, and there was no way he could turn his back on such a classic. He heaved himself off the bed and tucked his phone into his pocket, then set off toward the commons.

“Look who finally made it!” Roman called from his nest of blankets the second Virgil came into view. “Perfect timing, we’re just about to start.”

“Glad to be here,” Virgil replied, giving a small salute. He scanned his seating options (either between Patton and Logan or beside Roman) and settled for the corner where the two halves of the couch intersected — a small distance away from all three of them.

“Is everyone adequately blanketed?” Roman asked the room at large.

“Our potential for being ‘adequately blanketed,’” Logan said, placing air quotes around the phrase, “was reduced to near-zero when you piled four out of the five we possess on your own body.”

Roman rolled his eyes and tossed the one that was wrapped around his shoulders at Logan’s face, grinning slightly when Patton giggled. “There. Is that better?”

“That was uncalled for,” Logan said, but he draped the checkered fabric over himself and Patton anyway.

“Virgil can share with me,” Roman suggested, extending his right arm to leave a space for the other Side to sit. He waved it impatiently when Virgil remained in his corner.

“I don’t need a blanket.”

“Nonsense! Everyone needs a blanket. Come here.”

Virgil exhaled and slid along the cushions until he was just outside the reach of Roman’s fingertips. His hesitation earned him a raised eyebrow, and he reluctantly moved closer, doing his best not to stiffen when Roman’s arm draped itself over his shoulders.

_Calm down. You do this every week. They’re your friends._

“Hurry up and press play!” Patton said. He had a bowl of popcorn balanced on his knees that was definitely going to get spilled everywhere.

“Patience,” Roman said as he dug around the couch cushions for the remote.

“Why are we even watching this?” Virgil asked. The last time he had suggested _Black Cauldron_ , they hadn’t made it more than ten minutes in before he took it upon himself to put on _Beauty and the Beast_ instead. “I… didn’t think you guys liked it.”

While Roman and Logan rushed to assure him that that wasn’t the case — “Disney is Disney! How could I not love it?” “Personally, I rather prefer this to _High School Musical_ ” — Patton sheepishly stuffed some popcorn into his mouth and averted his gaze.

“Patton?” Roman said, evidently puzzled. “You were the one who suggested this cinematic masterpiece —”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a masterpiece,” Logan cut in.

“— do you not want to watch it?” Roman finished, ignoring him.

Everyone’s eyes were on Patton now, and he seemed to shrink in on himself, holding onto the popcorn bowl with both hands for support. “Of course I want to watch it!” he said with an unconvincing smile.

“Why are you doing this?” Virgil asked. He slid himself out from under Roman’s arm and flicked the blanket off of his lap, doing his best to look Patton in the eyes.

“I just thought it’d make you happy, kiddo,” Patton said earnestly.

“I’m not gonna let you watch a movie you hate just because you think it’ll make me feel better,” Virgil said, picking at the knee of his jeans. Roman tried to reach toward him again, and he leaned away.

“Are you currently feeling bad?” Logan inquired.

This was exactly why Virgil had wanted to stay in his room. “No,” he lied. “I — look. You guys watch whatever you want. I’m gonna…” He let the end of his sentence vaguely trail off and tried to get to his feet — then Roman grabbed his wrist, and his whole body tensed.

“You’re not going to stay?” he asked. A frown had spread itself across his face, but it wasn’t for show; he seemed genuinely discouraged.

“Don’t think I am,” Virgil said, snatching his arm away. He tapped his middle finger and thumb together repeatedly, trying to channel his jitteriness somewhere the others wouldn’t see. “Sorry.”

“Do you… wanna talk about it?” Patton tried.

“I really don’t,” Virgil said. Despite his best efforts, he was starting to get exasperated.

“I’m sure we can compromise on a slightly less disturbing movie,” Logan said. “ _The Little Mermaid_ , perhaps?”

The proposition distracted Roman enough to give Virgil a window to slip off the couch and toward the hall, but Patton wasn’t so easily evaded. He hopped up (knocking some popcorn to the floor as he did so) and scrambled to block the other’s path.

“What is it with you guys and trying to trap me places today?” Virgil grumbled, hyper aware of the way the other two were staring at them from the sofa.

“That’s not what we —”

“You know what I mean.”

Patton prodded absently at one of the pom poms on the cord of his sweater. “I’m just a little worried,” he said carefully. “You haven’t missed breakfast in a while, so I thought maybe —”

“I’m fine,” Virgil said. _Too loud. Try again._ “Seriously, don’t read into it. Nothing’s wrong.” _Lies._

“That sounded emotionally charged,” Logan observed.

“Oh, is it time to pile on the Worry About Virgil Train?” Immediately on the defensive. “Why don’t you hop on board, too, Princey?”

“I’m sorry, I’m confused,” Roman said. He glanced at Logan, who shrugged, equally lost. “Is this a fight?”

“It’s not a fight,” Virgil said, but the gravel in his tone seemed to disagree.

“You’ve been avoiding us all day,” Patton said. “We just wanna know why.”

“And I want to go to my room,” Virgil said. The lid on his temper wasn’t going to hold much longer. “Guess we’re both having trouble on that front.”

The other two were both on their feet now. “Virgil,” Logan said. “There’s clearly something bothering you. If you don’t wish to discuss it, that’s your prerogative, but there is no need to take it out on Patton.”

_Stop pushing them away, they just want to help, don’t make them hate you again, not again, not again._ “I’m not trying to — Look, I’m sorry, I just —”

“It’s okay, Logan,” Patton said quickly. He waved a hand at him and Roman, trying to get them to sit back down. “I’m not mad, really!”

Virgil tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Executive decision,” he said. “You guys watch _Big Hero 6_ and I go back to my room. Sound good?” Another attempt to walk down the hall. Another step by Patton to block the exit.

“Hold on,” he said quickly. “We want you to spend time with us!”

“I know,” Virgil said, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I know you do, and it’s great, but —” There was no way to put the mess in his head into words. “I can’t right now, okay?”

“But —”

“Patton.” Logan’s voice was unexpected but clear. “Let him go.”

_Thank you, I’m sorry, thank you._

Patton was wringing his hands, interlocking his fingers and pulling them apart like he didn’t even notice he was doing it. That sad sort of confusion was playing across his features again, and for a moment, Virgil was certain he wouldn’t listen.

Then he stepped aside, gaze cast toward the floor. Virgil cast one last look over the room; furrowed brows, downturned mouths. He flipped his hood up over his head and left the room.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to watch a movie with them; he really did. But Deceit — he shuddered at the thought. The last thing Virgil wanted to admit was that he was what caused all this, but he was. That stupid snake had gotten inside his head just like he wanted to, and for the second time that day, Virgil threw open his door and sat on the floor against it.

He had always been scared of letting them get too close. The feeling wasn’t a new one. If any of them ever found out why he was the way he was… he hated even thinking about it. Logan already had his suspicions, and if Virgil let anything slip, it would all be over. This family he had managed to stumble into would slip through his fingers, and he’d be right back where he started. They’d hate him almost as much as he hated himself.  
Keeping them at a distance was better than losing them altogether, he was sure of it. He wouldn’t lose them. He wouldn’t let them know.

He would protect this life he had with them, no matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a doozy. I spent a solid day editing and rewriting it, and I'm still not sure if I'm completely satisfied with the finished product. Let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alone in his room, Virgil thinks back again to his time before being accepted. This memory is more recent (and even less pleasant) than the last.

“Honestly, Anxiety,” Roman had said, staring down at the steps with both hands on his hips. “It’s like you get a kick out of shooting me down!”

“Maybe I do,” Virgil said. He was sitting cross-legged on his landing in the commons, pretending to scroll through tumblr while Roman berated him. It was like the guy had no better way to spend his time lately. (Sure, Virgil had pushed his buttons while they filmed, but he hadn’t technically done anything to bother him since they’d finished. Lately, just his presence seemed like enough to set someone off.)

Logan leaned into the room over the dividing wall that separated it from the kitchen, and both of them shot him a look. “I thought we had reached a consensus on originality,” he said. “Has this debate not been resolved?”

“Of course it’s been resolved,” Roman said. He pointed pithily at the indifferent Side to his left. “But _someone_ doesn’t want to accept the fact that he lost.”

“Lost the battle, not the war.”

“Since when are we at _war?_ ”

_Want me to pull out a calendar? I’ve got the date marked down._

“It’s been hours, you two,” Patton said from the sofa. If Virgil wasn’t mistaken, he almost sounded tired. “Thomas was perfectly happy with the way we ended the video. Why don’t we break it up?”

That wasn’t true. Thomas wasn’t happy, he was settling. He was… complacent. They’d reached a soft, cushy resolution with way too much room for improvement, and the uncertainty of it all was off putting for Virgil and nobody else.

“I’m not trying to fight,” he said, even though he totally was. _Wear them down_ , he thought. “He brought this on himself.”

“Goodness gracious,” Roman sighed. “Could you stop being such a Debbie Downer for once?”

Virgil chuckled blandly at his phone. “As if that’d make you hate me less.”

“He doesn’t hate you!” Patton said, and everyone jumped at the sheer volume of his interjection. He gave the prince a meaningful pair of raised eyebrows that didn’t seem to be earning him the response he wanted. “Right, Roman?”

“Don’t try and spare his feelings,” Roman said, turning toward him, and Patton rubbed uncomfortably at the back of his neck. “It’s not like he cares about ours.”

Patton’s eyes shifted toward Virgil’s for an instant, then cut away — in that tiny fragment of time, Virgil swore he could feel his stomach evaporate. Did Patton really… did he agree with Roman?

Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? Wasn’t that the point of all this?

“This bickering is highly unconstructive,” Logan said.

“Anxiety is unconstructive,” Roman groused.

“Roman!” Patton said, finally jumping up off the couch. “Would you stop that?”

“All I’m saying,” Roman said, very clearly avoiding the question, “is that he should stop being such a grouch about my objectively brilliant ideas.”

“That statement was not at all objective,” Logan pointed out.

“I’d be thrilled to,” Virgil said, ignoring him. “Once they stop being terrible.” He set his phone face down on the carpet beside him and looked up. _Eye contact_ , he thought. _Psych him out._

Unfortunately, Princey had a much stronger gaze than he had anticipated; not for the first time, Virgil felt about two inches tall under his stare, so he covered up the feeling with a smirk.

“Ugh, I have had it with you!” Roman exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “You think my artistic visions are laughable, do you? Well, I’m not quite sure what your criteria are, Han Woe-lo.”

Virgil held up his right hand and ticked fingers down as he went. “Clever, actually interesting, _original_ …” He wasn’t really sure why he was clinging to the concept of originality (especially after Logan had called him a defeatist over it), but considering the way it made Roman puff up like an indignant peacock, he figured it was a solid choice.

“ _Objectively,_ ” Logan said, leaning into the word to emphasize its correct usage, “Roman is capable come up with interesting ideas. If he weren’t, Thomas’s subscriber count would be few to none.”

“Guess they’ve all got terrible taste,” Virgil said.

“Anxiety.” Patton was using his Dad Voice (never a good sign). “You know that’s not true.”

“I’m just doing my job.” This wasn’t his job, not even a little bit. “Calling ‘em as I see ‘em, you know?”

“As if you know the first thing about good ideas,” Roman scoffed. “Name _one_ of yours that’s ever made Thomas happy.”

Dead silence.

“Now hold on just a second,” Patton said, but the damage was already done.

It was like a storm cloud had settled itself over the commons. The shadows in the corners seemed darker. The click of the heater went silent. Nothing existed but Virgil, slowly straightening up, his eyes full of fire; and Roman, hand poised tensely by his waist, standing his ground. It was a battle of wills, but it was impossible to tell whose would cave first. Both were silent and seething; each seemed as though they would like nothing more than to tear the other to shreds.

Then Virgil sank out, ducking into his room before anyone could see how badly he was shaking.

They hated him, Christ, they hated him, there was no point to any of this he was just making everyone mad they were never going to accept him or fear him or anything else they would just hate him hate him hate him —

“D-Deceit,” he choked out, and the other materialized by the window less than a second later, almost as if he had been waiting there all along.

“You rang?”

“This is… wrong,” Virgil said. For the second time that day, his head was filled with buzzing, and it was more aggressive this time, like a hundred bees hammering against his skull. “They’re mad at me, but they’re not scared, they’re not changing. It’s even worse than it was before.”

“As I’ve said, these things take —”

“Time?” Virgil demanded. “Is that what you were gonna say? You’ve been spewing that for two months now, and things haven't gotten any better.”

“Oh, but they have,” Deceit said. He swept across the room with a knowing glint in his eye and paused by an old, dusty chessboard on Virgil’s desk that hadn’t been used in a long, long time. A yellow-gloved finger reached out and tipped over a knight, which skidded slightly across the board before coming to a rest by the queen.

“They really haven't!” Virgil said, beginning to pace up and down a worn line on his carpet. “They don’t respect me, they just want me to get out of their hair. And I mean, Roman’s ideas aren’t… I shouldn’t be telling him that they suck.”

“You really are magnificent at adhering to the plan, aren’t you?” the snake muttered. “Press on. It _will_ work.”

“But if Roman feels like his ideas are garbage — I mean, some of them are definitely garbage, but if he _knows_ they are — he’ll stop telling them to Thomas, and then Thomas won’t have any ideas at _all_ , and that means he won’t be happy, and Roman — if we don’t need him anymore, Roman could _die_.”

“‘Every war has casualties,’” Deceit quoted, his voice silky. “‘Doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting.’”

“That’s — no. Roman’s a complete jerk, but I could never — if anything bad happened to any of them —”

Deceit remained stoic as Virgil stumbled over his words, gloved hands folded in front of him and expression impassive. “Nothing ‘bad’ will happen,” he said, “I assure you.”

Virgil shook his head slowly; trying to process, trying to think, trying to figure out which way was up. _This was wrong._ This was right. _It had to stop._ It was the only way.

“And wouldn’t your work be so much easier without that miserable prince countering everything you do?”

“I…”

“Trust me.” Deceit had strode close enough now that he was mere feet away from the other — 

He placed a hand on Virgil’s arm.

None of the others would touch him. Never. It was like they thought he carried some unseen plague, something that would contaminate them with negativity. Virgil wasn’t just negativity, of course — he was caution, common sense, self-preservation — not that anybody had ever taken the time to figure that out. But there was a hand on his arm and it was the first contact he’d had in years and some distant part of him felt like it wanted to cry.

Virgil stepped back. "I just want to keep Thomas safe."

“You will,” Deceit said. “You _are_. All you need to do is follow through.”

Follow through with a daunting, mildly terrifying plan that didn’t show a single sign of working. Follow through with changing everything, probably for the worse. But the way Deceit phrased it, the way he had phrased _everything_... “Okay,” he said to the ground. “You… you’re right. Again.”

“The righteous path isn’t always the easy one,” Deceit said, reaching up to adjust that strange hat that Virgil never really understood. “But I promise you, Anx —”

“Virgil.”

“Pardon?”

A steadying breath. “My, um… my name’s Virgil.” 

There was an odd sort of quiet hanging in the air, one that was either stiff or surprised — maybe both. When he finally forced himself to look Deceit in the face, he was surprised to find something similar to a smile tugging at the left side of the snake’s face. Something flashed behind that odd yellow eye. Then it vanished.

“Well then, Virgil,” he said, almost like he was testing it out. “It seems you and I have some work to do.”

Virgil blinked, steeled himself, and nodded.

“Let’s get to it, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you couldn't already tell, this fic follows a current-flashback-current-flashback sort of pattern (first two chapters excluded, of course). This chapter is a little on the shorter side; I didn't want it to drag on for a million years, and I think it got its point across. As always, thoughts and opinions are welcome in the comments!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan stops by to check on Virgil. The two talk for a while, but the conversation reaches a much more abrupt end than either of them had anticipated.

Virgil slept uneasily. (To be fair, he never slept particularly well, but tonight was worse than most.) His few hours of rest were punctured by the same dream, over and over: 

_He was standing on a ledge, somewhere so high up he couldn’t see the ground. Clouds loomed above him and a foggy abyss swirled below. A strange feeling gnawed at his stomach, one that told him he had been here before, and that maybe… maybe last time, he had jumped._

_He didn’t want to jump. The view was alright and the air was cool on his face, though no wind blew to accompany it. Maybe he was too high for wind. Or birds. Or sound._

_The only thing keeping him from tipping over the edge was a hand gripping tight to the back of his hoodie. He should’ve felt safe. Instead, he felt stuck. Virgil tugged away, and the grasp tightened. He tried to protest, to tell whoever was holding him to get off, but his voice didn’t work and he was going to lose his balance and suddenly there was wind blowing, blowing, blowing in every direction that threatened to send him flying._

_The hand let go._

_He lost his footing and fell._

A sharp knock at Virgil’s door jerked him awake, and he flailed in a tangle of bedsheets for a solid twenty seconds before finally stumbling toward the door, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he went. Yesterday’s eyeshadow was still smudged beneath them and his hair was a mess — all of him probably was — but he opened the door anyway and found a wide awake Logan just outside of it.

“You’re not wearing your hoodie,” he said in lieu of a greeting.

“Good morning to you, too,” Virgil said flatly. He glanced down; he was, in fact, still in a plain purple t-shirt and black flannel pajama bottoms. “You think I sleep in it or something?”

“Of course not,” Logan said. “I just… don’t recall seeing you without it before.”

Virgil shrugged uncomfortably, scanning the room for the rumpled lump of fabric. He found it in a heap at the foot of his bed and slid it on in a hurry, acutely aware of how exposed he felt without it wrapped around him.

“So,” he said, tugging at the strings so they were equal lengths, “any particular reason you’re here at —” he checked the rapidly spinning clock by his bookshelf “— ten in the morning?”

“No,” Logan said. Virgil tipped his head forward in disbelief, and he went on. “I thought I’d check up on you.”

“I’m not sick.”

“I’m aware.” Logan nudged at his glasses despite them being situated just fine on his nose. “May I come in?”

Virgil moved to block the doorway without hesitation. “You may not,” he said, and it earned him a sigh.

“Would you consider accompanying me to my room instead?”

Whatever proposition Virgil had been expecting, that wasn’t it. Logan’s room didn’t exactly have an open door policy like Patton’s; in fact, Virgil wondered if he had ever seen further inside than what was visible from the hall when he passed by. What was Logan plotting?

“Uh,” Virgil said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I… I guess?”

“Excellent,” Logan said. He turned and set off down the hall without bothering to see if the other was following (he was, for the record, albeit reluctantly). It was a shorter walk thank Virgil remembered — maybe Logan was better at navigating the mindscape than he was. “Here we are.”

It took a conscious effort for Virgil to keep his jaw from dropping.

Logan’s room was incredible. The walls were painted a deep blue with indigo along the bottom trim, and a silver-silled window was situated next to an orderly black desk. It looked out over a rushing stream, which twisted through trees and was lined with large, smooth stones. Pale morning sunlight filtered into the room through large green leaves. Virgil found it almost peaceful, but he only got a glimpse before Logan waved his hand and the curtains slid closed, bathing the room in darkness.

That’s when Virgil noticed the ceiling. _Whoa._ It was like standing in the Great Hall of Hogwarts at midnight. Seemingly enchanted stars glittered across the ceiling, forming dozens of constellations from wall to wall. Some of them Virgil recognized — Sirius, Cassiopeia — but others looked suspiciously like a sparkling sword or a jar of jam. A few were vaguely person-shaped; one wore a crown, two had glasses, and another had a cluster of tiny stars beneath each eye. He spun slowly around, taking in as much of the swirling color above him as he could.

“That… sure is something,” Virgil said, unable to look away.

“It is,” Logan agreed. “It was a birthday gift from Roman. I thought you might like it.”

“You thought right,” Virgil said. He noticed after a moment that Logan had seated himself on the edge of his bed and was motioning for the other to sit beside him. “So, uh… why am I here, exactly?”

Logan waited until Virgil had sat down (a significant distance away from him) before beginning. “I noticed you’ve been acting somewhat strange recently.” He certainly wasn’t one to beat around the bush.

“Strange.”

“Yes,” Logan said, trying to make eye contact despite Virgil staring fixedly at his knees. “I assume you know what I’m talking about.”

A half hearted _I-don’t-know_ sound escaped Virgil’s throat. He was too tired to keep his guard up; when he thought about it, that was probably why Logan had chosen to speak with him so early in the morning. This whole discussion had been planned out to a tee.

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” Logan asked.

There were plenty of things Virgil should have told him, but none that he’d like to. He scratched at the back of his head, unresponsive, and got another weary sigh in return.

“You do know you can talk to us,” Logan said, “if something is bothering you, right?”

“Yeah.” Virgil reached up and absentmindedly wound one of his hoodie strings around his finger.

“Well, something clearly _is_ bothering you.”

“Excellent deduction,” Virgil muttered. Logan was still staring at him, he could tell, but he kept his eyes turned down.

“I’m here to listen.”

_Unfortunately, I’m not here to talk._ Why was it so hard to explain what was going on? Other than the crippling fear that they’d all turn their backs on him if they found out where he’d come from, that was. Logan wasn’t going to judge him. He’d be impartial as always. Maybe Virgil _should_ tell him. Just four simple words and the hardest part would be over. Nobody would hate him. He could do this.

“I, uh…” _Breathe._ “I’m a —”

The words stopped coming.

Logan nodded expectantly. “Yes?”

He couldn’t speak. No matter how many times Virgil opened his mouth, no matter how hard he pushed the air out of his lungs, he couldn’t make a sound. His hands pressed themselves into fists in his lap, nails digging so hard into the already sore skin of his palms that they nearly drew blood. The harder he tried to talk, the tighter the panic wound around his chest.

“Virgil?” Logan said, a crease forming between his brows. He made to move closer, but Virgil edged away. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

A sharp shake of his head to either side.

“Are you able to speak at all?”

Another shake.

“Okay,” Logan said, and Virgil swore he could hear the gears turning in the other’s head. Again, he reached out. Again, Virgil leaned away. “I’m going to guide you through a breathing exercise.”

_I can do my own damn breathing exercise,_ Virgil wanted to say, but even if he could have spoken, he didn’t have the energy to protest.

“In for one… two… three… four…” Logan was saying.

Virgil complied. His inhale was stuttery and uneven.

“Hold for one… two…”

His hands relaxed. He noted distantly that his fingernails were bloody and scrubbed them against his pajamas.

“Now breathe out… You’re doing great, Virgil.”

_Great_ seemed like a bit of a stretch, but the air had stopped feeling like lead in his lungs, so that was a step in the right direction. He let his eyes turn up toward the ceiling where stars twinkled innocently down at him. They were oddly grounding.

“Um,” he tried, and there the relief he felt when the word left his mouth was impossible to describe. “T-thanks.”

“Of course,” Logan said. Virgil finally met his eyes; they were full of deep confusion. “I’m… sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Pressing,” Logan told him. “Whatever is bothering you is clearly making you more anxious than I realized. I’m not going to force you to explain anything until you are ready.”

Virgil wanted to be ready. He’d kept this to himself for his whole life, and frankly, he didn’t understand how no one had figured it out yet. But something had kept him from telling the truth. It was almost as if — no. No, it couldn’t be.

There was a strange expression playing across Logan’s features. If Virgil wasn’t mistaken, it was something close to suspicion. He felt like he was laid out on a table to be examined, every inch of him analyzed under Logan’s fluorescent gaze. The panic he had just barely managed to evade began creeping back around his throat, and as expected, Logan took note.

“My apologies for waking you so early,” he said. He nudged again at his glasses and got to his feet. “You’re free to leave,” he added, “if you would like.”

Casting one last glance up at the stars, Virgil rose as well, but he didn’t move. For a while, he just stood there, watching Logan watching him, wondering how this encounter would have ended if he had finally told the truth.

“I’m here if you need to talk,” Logan said after a while. He lifted a hand and let it rest on Virgil’s shoulder. “We all are.”

Virgil tugged at the zipper of his hoodie. “Thanks,” he said. Logan inclined his head. Virgil took a short breath, readying himself to say something more. Then he left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder what it was that kept Virgil from speaking...?
> 
> Sorry for the wait on this one! I may or may not have gotten so wrapped up in reading other fics that I forgot to work on my own. Logan's room was way more fun to write than I had expected; here's to hoping I did it justice!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alone with his thoughts once again, Virgil thinks back to the days following "My Negative Thinking."

The corner of the sofa had become an almost comfortable place for Virgil — well, as comfortable as he could be in the commons. He’d found that if he sat quietly enough, headphones on and legs tucked beneath him, this was a space in which he could exist peacefully without being completely alone.

Of course, there were still plenty of times when Virgil had to abandon his post and retreat back into his room. As far as he could tell, Patton didn’t entirely mind his presence — in fact, he would sometimes go so far as to try and make conversation with Virgil, and that was when the fight or flight response kicked in. (He always chose the latter.) Patton had a tendency to be so bubbly and warm that it came out forced, all _Hey_ s and _How are you_ s and _When’s the last time you came to dinner_ s in quick succession. Over the course of a few days, Virgil had timed out how long he could stand it before sinking out. He averaged at forty-two seconds.

Roman was far less friendly in his tolerance. While he rarely complained about the darker trait openly, Virgil could feel the occasional uneasy glances in his direction digging into his skin like the edge of a sword. It was kind of funny, really; no matter how discreetly Virgil went about his business, it was as if he radiated some terrible energy that Roman could sniff out from a mile (or, in this case, a couch cushion) away.

In short, Virgil had every reason to leave the commons well enough alone — but ever since his debate with Logan, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe this was a place he would come to like. His corner was nice, and if he was being honest, Logan was pretty okay, too.

“Anxiety,” the latter said one day as he strode into the room. There was a leather-bound tome in his arms (was it some sort of ledger?). “I need your help with something.”

Virgil slid one side of his headphones off his ear — he hadn’t been listening to anything, but he couldn’t have heard Logan correctly — and blinked. “My help?”

“Yes,” Logan said, seating himself on the opposite end of the sofa and propping the ledger open on his knees. “You’re aware that Thomas is planning a merchandise release event for later this year, correct?”

“Yeah…?” Virgil said. He pushed his headphones all the way off and left them wrapped around his neck. What did this have to do with him?

“This event will also entail a meet and greet with fans,” Logan said. It seemed like he was building up to something.

Inside, Virgil shuddered at the thought of meeting all those faceless people; outside, he cocked his head indifferently. Logan (who had busied himself with flipping through the book and digging a pen from his pocket) didn’t notice.

“I thought it would be wise to consult you,” he continued, uncapping the pen and looking up, “before I assemble a proposed schedule of events. If you’re willing to assist, that is.”

“Meet and greets aren’t exactly my department.”

“On the contrary,” Logan said. “I think it safe to assume that you understand Thomas’s… limitations in regard to human interaction, yes?”

Virgil’s eyes flickered over Logan’s straight-backed, businesslike figure. “Better than the rest of you?” he said, wrestling with his skepticism. “Probably.” Logan dismissed the slight.

“Taking into account Thomas’s usual —” he paused, drummed his fingers against the ledger “— anxieties with socialization, I thought you could be of some help in determining how long each session should be. Assuming there is one ten minute break after each portion of time, what duration would you recommend per session?”

It took Virgil a minute to process all that. Logan wanted his input? Since when? These were the types of decision that were usually made without him, forcing him to kick into overdrive halfway through an event and send everyone flying in different directions as he and Thomas both panicked. “I’m still not sure why you’re asking me, Poindexter.”

“When I posed this question to Roman,” Logan said, “he informed me that Thomas could last twelve hours without a single break. I’m inclined to believe that you can provide a more realistic response.”

Virgil exhaled so deeply that his bangs fluttered. “Well,” he said slowly, “I’d say he can handle… maybe an hour and a half without stopping. Two if he brings Joan or Talyn.”

“Does their presence make a difference?” Logan inquired, scribbling something in the margins of his notes.

“Obviously,” Virgil said.

“How so?”

A blatant rolling of Virgil’s eyes indicated that Logan wouldn’t be getting an answer to that question. There was silence for a minute as he scratched away at his ledger, drawing arrows and tables at lightspeed like his life depended on it. Then he turned his attention back to Virgil.

“How many sessions would you say Thomas can manage?” he asked.

Virgil tugged pensively at the sleeve of his hoodie, too busy thinking to bother being cynical. “As many as it takes to see everyone,” he decided.

“That’s a significant period of time,” Logan said. “You don’t think it will be too much?”

“Oh, it’ll definitely be too much.” Virgil made an effort to inject a little malice into his tone to keep from betraying the nervousness in his stomach. He leaned forward and set his elbows on his knees, trying to make himself look bigger, more menacing. “But imagine all those fans he’d be letting down if he turned them away. They’d hate him.”

Logan made another note. “Understood,” he said, hefting the cover of his leather tome closed. “Thank you.”

“Uh, you’re not welcome,” Virgil said. Sensing the conversation was over, he slid his headphones back onto his ears and bobbed his head slightly from side to side, pretending to listen to music again so he could eavesdrop unnoticed. He waited, and as expected, Logan strode out of the room.

“How’d it go?” he heard Patton ask from the kitchen.

“Quite well,” Logan told him. There was a loud _thud_ as his book was dropped onto the table.

“Really? Huh.” Roman’s voice. “I must say I didn’t see that coming.”

“That’s great!” Patton exclaimed. He must have gesticulated a little too wildly as he spoke; a loud clatter following his words suggested that he’d whacked his glasses off his face and onto the floor. The noise was accompanied by a booming laugh from Roman.

They went on like that for a while, chatting and laughing and planning out the rest of the itinerary until they all wandered off in different directions. Virgil dropped his headphones on the couch beside him and exhaled, trying to process what had just happened. Someone had asked for his opinion, and when he gave it, it was actually respected. That never happened. For the first time in a long time, he’d been listened to, and the thought almost made him smile.

Then the room went cold, and Virgil couldn’t help but feel like he’d known this was coming.

“Wonderful job striking fear into their hearts,” Deceit said, sarcasm dripping from his words. He stood with his back against the bannister of the stairs, gazing down at Virgil like some disappointed parent. “I’ve never seen a plan more flawlessly executed.”

“I didn’t need the plan,” Virgil said. Despite how hard he worked to keep his tone neutral, he sounded pathetically defensive.

“I see,” Deceit said. “In that case, I suggest you abandon it altogether. Surely this individual fluke indicates a paradigm shift in their mindsets. They’ll listen to you now, no doubt.”

The longer he spoke, the more Virgil curled in on himself. “Shut up,” he said. It came out too soft. He could pretend to intimidate the others all he wanted, but Deceit knew who he really was, and it put him in a terrible position for arguing.

“You know I’m right,” Deceit hissed. He pushed away from the bannister and approached the sofa, his movements slow and calculated. “If you back off now, this will all have been for nothing. They’ll never respect you.”

“But…” Virgil’s fingers worried at the zipper of his hoodie. “I mean, yeah. You’ve got a point. You always do. But just now, Logan, he _listened_ to me.”

Deceit came to a halt by the edge of the sofa without bothering to sit. He gave each of his gloves a short tug even though they were settled just fine on his hands, waiting for Virgil to say something more rather than speaking himself.

“He asked me for help, Dee.” There had to be some way to explain this that didn’t make Virgil sound like a plan-abandoning traitor. “And when I told him what I thought, he wrote it down and thanked me. That’s never happened before.”

“How sweet that you believe it will happen again.”

“It — it could,” Virgil said. “That debate I had with Logan got me thinking —”

“I truly can't wait to discuss this again,” Deceit muttered, tone bordering on impatience.

“What if…” He pushed a hand through his hair in an effort to steel himself. “What if the way they act around me doesn’t mean what we think it means?” A blank stare was all Virgil got in response, so he continued. “They obviously don’t like me, but maybe thinking that they hate me is a… a cognitive distortion.”

“Virgil,” Deceit said, his eye flashing. “You can’t possibly trust what they’re spouting. It’s all a ruse. They want to use you. You must know that.”

 _Did_ Virgil know that? Logan had no reason to lie to him; if he really didn’t like someone, he’d say it outright. The more time Virgil spent around Deceit, the more he felt like something about the situation was backwards. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but it made his thoughts reel, and the confusion of it all must have shown on his face.

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” Deceit asked. There was an almost dangerous note that laced its way through his words.

 _I think there could be another way to make them hear me. I think you might be wrong. I think you’re lying._ “No.”

Deceit inclined his head. This was clearly the answer he wanted; the discussion, in his mind, was settled. “Keep up the good work,” he said, giving his cape a small tweak. “I’m sure you’ll have made progress the next time I check in.” Virgil said nothing. He sank out.

Maybe Deceit was right about this. Just because Logan had listened to him once didn’t mean he’d do it again… but by that logic, it also didn’t mean that he _wouldn’t_ do it again, right? The other Sides had seemed almost happy when they heard that Virgil had helped. What if being a jerk wasn’t the right way to go about this? _What if it was?_ What if he didn’t need to scare them into submission? _What if he did?_ What if everything he’d been working toward had been a lie? _What if it hadn’t?_

It was too much. Virgil stayed there on the couch, head spinning, until late into the night, only leaving when the others turned up for breakfast. As he sank out, away from the commons, away from the couch, he couldn’t help but wonder:

What was he supposed to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer and closer to the home stretch. I've got a lot of plot and foreshadowing to work into these upcoming chapters, which means a whole bunch of editing and planning on my part, so I'll apologize in advance for updates taking a little longer than normal. As always, let me know what you think!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil finally works up the courage to confess. All he can do is hope that things go according to plan.

Virgil spent the afternoon tracing a straight path back and forth along his carpet. It was the same one he always used when he paced; he’d worn a matted track into it with sock-clad feet that by now was several years old. He trooped from the foot of his bed to his desk chair and back again for what felt like hours, the motion serving as a futile effort to mediate between the two halves of his mind that had been shouting at each other for the better part of the day.

On the one hand, he could tell the truth. Maybe it wouldn’t even be a big deal — maybe everyone would just nod and move on like they’d known all along. Roman would try his hardest to understand. Patton would be supportive. Logan would take it as objectively as he could. Over the past year, they’d made a point of promising to accept Virgil in spite of his faults. What was one fault more?

But on the other hand, maybe the best choice was to stay quiet. He had been indirectly lying to all three of the others since… well, since he’d first come into existence. A lie of omission, right? Leaving something important out? If he confessed, they could stop trusting him. They could kick him out. They could take everything away from him; the happiness, the acceptance, the love.

No. That wasn’t rational. It was a worst case scenario fueled by years of paranoia. Putting this off was only making Virgil miserable; no matter the outcome, it almost seemed better to get it off his chest now before he lost his nerve.

So he stepped out into the hall and took the same twists and turns through the mindscape as he had that morning, his heart beating louder the closer he got. Again, the walk felt far too fast. He rounded a corner, and suddenly Logan’s room was there, hanging in his line of sight like one of the Doors of Death. _It’s fine,_ he thought, twisting at the hem of his hoodie. _It’s fine. Just knock. It’s fine._

Virgil raised a hand, sleeve pulled over his knuckles, and gave two short knocks on the plain black wood.

“Yes?” came a voice on the other side.

“It’s, uh… It’s me. Virgil.”

A brief pause, and then: “One moment.”

Virgil stood there with bated breath as a series of sounds issued from behind the door — the scrape of a chair, the thud of a book sliding back onto a shelf, and a dozen other noises he couldn’t place. Waiting was agony; he was seconds away from taking off down the hall and not looking back.

Then the door swung open, and there was Logan, eyebrows raised and posture perfect. “What is it?”

“I was just wondering,” Virgil said, speaking as slow as he could to keep from fumbling with the sentence. “If I… _hypothetically_ had something to tell you —”

Logan stepped aside to let Virgil in without hesitation, gesturing toward the edge of his bed for the second time that day. “You know how I feel about dealing in hypotheticals.”

“Yeah, no, I —” Virgil stopped, breathed, fixed his gaze on a brass telescope by the window. The light beyond it was dim as the yellow sun burned through dull reddish leaves. “You said you were here to listen.”

A curt nod.

“Right,” Virgil said, willing himself to cut to the chase. “So I… I thought I’d tell you something.”

Logan just watched him, hands folded in his lap.

“I’m…” _Like a band aid. Come on._ “Okay, before I say anything, just take a second to remember all the friendliness and acceptance that’s been going on lately.”

“You do know how forgetful I am.” Logan’s sarcasm did nothing to comfort him.

God, why was this so difficult? It was just Logan. He should have been the easiest to talk to; he didn’t issue the same supportive pressure as Patton, nor did he exude intense encouragement like Roman. Just clever, sharp witted Logan. _You can do this._

Virgil’s hands were shaking. He shoved them into his pockets. _Tell him tell him tell him —_

“I’m a Dark Side.”

The silence that followed his words was deafening. Virgil waited until he couldn’t stand the quiet anymore and tumbled into speech.

“I mean — I was one. Maybe it’s obvious, you probably already knew, but — I should have told you guys months ago.” He registered the frantic bouncing of his knee as he spoke without bothering to try and stop it. “I, um. I was working with Deceit. Or for him. I don’t know. I hated it, I hated _him,_ I hated not telling anyone, I’m really — I’m sorry.”

Virgil pressed his eyes shut and turned his face up toward the ceiling, determined to look at anything other than Logan. When he opened them, he was faced with plain white paint; no stars this time since the curtain was open. Nothing to distract him. Nothing but this stupid ringing silence that whistled through his brain like wind in a ghost town.

“You gonna say anything?” he finally asked. Still no response. Hesitantly, he turned his head down. “Logan?”

The other Side had gotten to his feet. There was a look in his eyes Virgil had never seen before; it was like a fire had been lit in them that burned Virgil to his core and filled his stomach with lead.

“How long?” was all he said.

“W-what?”

“How long did you keep this from us?”

Virgil squirmed under his gaze. “Forever, I guess,” he said. “I never wanted to be a jerk to you guys, I swear, but nobody _listened_ to me, and —”

“You mean to tell me,” Logan said, cutting him off, “that you have been lying to us for nearly the entire time we’ve known you?”

“No,” Virgil said quickly. “Maybe? I don’t — I didn’t mean —”

“For years,” he went on, “you’ve been actively working against us. Conspiring with Deceit. Surely you don’t believe this is something that can be easily forgotten.”

“I thought you’d get it,” Virgil said. Normally when he got worked up, his voice grew bigger, louder, more frightening, but now… now it was so soft he could hardly hear himself speak. “Out of everyone, I — I just thought you’d get it.”

Logan extended a hand and Virgil flinched. As it turned out, he was only reaching for the door.

“You… want me to leave?” Virgil asked, almost incredulous.

“No,” Logan said. His tone was unbearably flat. “I’m holding the door open for my own convenience.”

This wasn’t right, it wasn’t _fair._ “Fine,” Virgil said, forcing the word out through the lump in his throat. He drew himself up as tall as he could. For a moment, he met Logan’s eye, and everything about him was stoic and unreadable. “Let me save you the trouble.”

Virgil sank out so fast that when he appeared in his room, he stumbled sideways into his bookshelf. He clutched at it to keep from falling; once he regained his footing, that shelf was the only thing keeping him upright.

 _I knew it, I knew this would happen, I told you not to but you did it anyway you’re so_ stupid, _I_ told _you, why did you even try?_

The buzzing was back, but it wasn’t just in his head. There was a relentless hum in his hands, his stomach, his feet — one wrong move and he was liable to explode. This was something much worse than panic. It was anger. It was _rage_.

Why had he thought this was a good idea? Why had he clung to that pointless shred of hope? This had blown up in his face just like he’d expected it to, and now Logan would run off and tell the others and they’d turn on him again and he’d be alone, alone, alone.

Virgil raked his fingers through his hair and willed himself to breathe, but the air choked off halfway into his lungs. He’d ruined everything with those four simple words. All he’d done was tell the truth, and it had made his worst fears a reality. Maybe Deceit had been right after all.

No, _no_. Deceit was the reason he’d lied in the first place. He was the reason all this had happened. But of course, he just got to kick back and relax, baiting Thomas with flimsy promises and wearing those stupid yellow gloves while Virgil’s world fell apart.

He started to pace. Not on his usual track, though — in circles this time, around the room again and again, picking up speed, toes tripping on the edge of his carpet, feet falling in time with his pulse. It wasn’t helping. Nothing was helping.

In an act of desperation, Virgil snatched up a hardback book from his bedside table and lobbed it at the wall. It was a thick book, one that he prayed would grant him some sort of release, but as it collided with the patchy gray paint, he realized he’d made a fatal mistake.

This was the stretch of wall that housed his clock. It was hung there on a single nail, and it often wobbled dangerously in the wake of even the smallest disturbance, be it a loud footstep or a slammed door, which meant —

_CRASH._

The clock seemed to fall in slow motion. Its two hands still spun at a dizzying speed, turning and turning until the awful moment when it made contact with the cold, hard floor. The glass face shattered, shards skittering across the floor, and the sound it made reverberated so terribly that Virgil wouldn’t have been surprised if someone could hear it a mile away. Virgil just stood there, staring down at a mess of ruined glass for the second time in a matter of days, everything inside him racing and reeling but unable to move a muscle.

His door flew open.

There, framed by the dark of the hallway, were three figures in varying states of alarm. Three. That meant Roman, Patton — and behind them both, scanning the room with concern and bewilderment —

_Logan._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The climax is on its way! This chapter is the tipping point, and I'd like to formally apologize for it taking so long; two of my usual three writing days were swallowed up by working nonstop on my little brother's musical, hence the delay. Let me know what you think!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil flashes back to the day he ducked out, just before the events of "Accepting Anxiety." The memory, as expected, is far from comforting.

Spending time with the other Sides had become a game of Russian roulette.

On a good day, they’d all tolerate him. Maybe Virgil would manage a chuckle at one of Patton’s jokes. Maybe he’d be pleasantly surprised when Logan agreed with him rather than the others. He’d go back to his room feeling slightly less terrible than usual, then throw on a pair of headphones to keep from thinking too hard about it.

On a bad day, though, things didn’t run quite as smooth. More often than not, it was Virgil who started the conflict — not that it was always intentional. Sometimes, he’d make a snide comment with the intention of egging someone (usually Roman) on. Others, he’d find himself on the verge of panic and be met with disdainful remarks rather than comfort or support. When he managed to escape the situation, it left him feeling almost empty, like nothing he did was ever really right.

Today was not a good day.

Virgil had been on edge since the moment he woke up. It was the second day of four that they’d be spending at VidCon, and he was just barely pulling through. Thomas had already spoken at two different panels — which was fine, really. That was Roman’s territory. They were used to getting up in front of crowds. Today, though… today they’d be walking the floor.

Thomas had done this sort of thing plenty of times. Virgil should have been used to it by now. But all the talking and smiling and photos he’d already had to sit through were driving him into a state of alarm; he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d manage to hold out.

The unexpectedness of it was arguably the worst part; while panels or meet and greets were structured (a definitive end time always helped to ease Virgil’s nerves), walking aimlessly around the convention hall meant anyone could come up to say hi at any time. What if Thomas had a mouthful of food when someone wanted to talk? What if a fan took something he said the wrong way and told everyone he was a jerk? What if —

“We should leave the hotel in approximately ten minutes if we want to arrive on time,” Logan said to the room at large, shaking Virgil from his thoughts. The commons around him bustled with Sides trying to get their bearings before they left for the convention.

“Where are Thomas’s keys?” Patton cried as he skidded into the room.

“On the counter of his apartment,” Logan said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This hotel room uses a key card, which is currently in his pocket. I have told you this three times since we got here.”

“Oh,” Patton said. “Then I guess we’re ready! Let’s get moving!”

Moving toward crowds. Moving toward heat and noise and people they didn’t know.

“One last check in the mirror!” Roman declared. “We can’t go out looking anything less than our best with so many cameras around.”

“Check all you want,” Virgil muttered from the arm of the couch. “You’ll never get that mess of hair to cooperate.” As expected, Roman ducked toward the mirror again, and Virgil silently commended himself for delaying their departure.

“Don’t go starting with all that negativity,” Patton chided him. “Today’s gonna be fun!”

Virgil arched an eyebrow at him from under his bangs, but Patton had already run off in a different direction to help Logan get Thomas out the door.

“We are now three minutes behind schedule,” Logan observed, tapping the toe of his shoe impatiently against the carpet.

Virgil curled against the cushion behind him and stuck his hands in his pockets, wishing he could just sit today out. He didn’t have the energy to try and scare everyone into submission or the will to breathe through the stress. The anticipation was already killing him.

“Here we are,” Logan announced, and oh, oh _man._

It couldn’t have been later than nine in the morning, but the hall was swarming with enough kids and creators to fill a football field. There were people in cosplay, people in street clothes, people he’d never seen before who all had the potential to rush him for photos. Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the sofa below him in a futile attempt to ground himself.

“Look at all these nifty costumes!” Patton exclaimed, evidently feeling none of the crushing dread that had filled Virgil’s entire being. “Okay, that one with the blood all over his neck is a little gruesome, but — hey Roman, look, that one is dressed up as you!”

Now there was chatter in the mindscape to parallel the deafening roar outside of it. Virgil tried to slink out of the commons unnoticed, but Patton seemed to have other plans.

“Hey, Anxiety, come see this!” he said. He waved at the other Side enthusiastically and didn’t stop until Virgil looked again at the crowd. “Isn’t it neat?”

Patton was being friendly. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Real or fake, Virgil could _not_ engage. This wasn’t allowed. This wasn’t how he’d win.

“It’s terrible, actually,” he said, unable to stop himself. Patton opened his mouth to reply with a huff, but Logan interrupted him.

“Teenager with a camera at two o’clock,” he said. “No, your other two o’clock, Roman.”

Now a pair of arms were wrapped around Thomas’s waist, and Virgil could tell Thomas hadn’t been expecting it. They both jumped, tensing at the sudden contact, and while Patton took the wheel to greet the kid and tell them how cool their hair looked, Virgil drummed his fingers a little too fast on the arm of the couch as the thoughts started pouring in.

Thomas was uncomfortable. He hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night (which was probably Virgil’s fault, but still) and he clearly wasn’t prepared to handle this much attention so early in the morning. But how on Earth was he supposed to communicate that to the others?

“Guys?” Virgil tried, and it came out weak. He cleared his throat and took another stab. “Guys.”

He didn’t get so much as a glance over the shoulder in reply.

“Sure, don’t listen to me,” he mumbled. “That’s nothin’ new.”

“Did you say something, kiddo?” Patton asked.

“Nope.”

Virgil sat with his legs tucked under him for at least half an hour, doing everything he could to make it out the other end of this godforsaken day. He toughed out at least a dozen selfies, fourteen hugs (two kids came back for seconds), and three pictures taken from across the hall without consent. For a glimmering moment, it almost seemed as though he’d be able to last until the end without royally screwing something up.

Then _they_ arrived and threw that possibility out the window.

There were three of them. One with short black hair, wearing a necktie; one with long blonde pigtails and a cardigan around her shoulders; and a third who’d bought a wig for the occasion, with a red sash draped across their front. All three squealed upon seeing Thomas at a frequency Virgil was sure only bats would be able to hear if it went any higher. Regular, respectful fans were one thing, but these — these were ecstatic tweens, and they set off every alarm bell Virgil could think of and then some.

“Oh my gosh, I’m gonna cry, I’m sorry.”

“You _literally_ saved my life.”

“Can we —” a shrill giggle “— can we, like, get a picture?”

Unable to take it anymore, Virgil slammed on the brakes. There were no physical controls in Thomas’s mind, but if any of them wanted to, they could easily exert the force required to stop him in his tracks. Everyone felt it, froze, and turned to stare at Virgil, who was standing stock still in the center of the room.

“Anxiety?” Logan asked cautiously. “What are you doing?”

Virgil fought to get a hold of his breathing, of Thomas’s, but his chest was rising and falling now at a speed he couldn’t control. He yanked his hoodie tighter around himself and, gritting his teeth resolvedly, steered Thomas out of the convention hall.

“Wait!” Patton said. “We still have to take a picture with them. You can’t just walk away, that’s mean!”

“Guess I’m mean, then,” Virgil grumbled. There was a squeezing around his lungs that refused to let up. If he could just get them somewhere with less people, less noise —

“We need to get back in there,” Roman said decidedly. There was a sort of jolt that passed through the commons; a moment later, they all watched as Thomas drew to a halt yet again and turned to stare back toward the room he’d just left.

“I — What? No.” Virgil shook his head. “We need to leave. Now.”

“Those girls are counting on us!” the prince insisted, arms crossed defiantly over his chest. “This could be the picture of their dreams. Do you really want to be the one to take that away from them?”

“I doubt you’d be tripping over yourself to get a picture if they were dressed as me instead of you,” Virgil spat.

“That is _not_ what this is about, you Sad Hatter.”

As they fought, Thomas chewed hesitantly at his lip, unable to commit to staying or going, and Virgil could tell his heart rate was picking up. _Be comfortable, be nice to the girls. Be comfortable, be nice to the girls._

“You’re making it worse, idiot,” Virgil hissed, and it earned him a scoff.

“Now is really not the time for arguing —” Logan began. He was immediately cut off.

“Am I?” Roman demanded. “I’m inclined to believe that Thomas wouldn’t even be _in_ this predicament if you’d just leave well enough alone!”

“Are you _kidding me?_ ” Virgil said, and though he was distantly aware of the way his voice was beginning to shift, to louden, he plowed on. “ _Has it ever once occurred to you that I might be trying to help?_ ”

“A-Anxiety —” There was a waver in Patton’s words. He was finally afraid.

“ _Save it,_ ” Virgil growled. Had any of them ever heard him speak when he was like this? Did that explain the fear in their eyes? “ _I don’t care. I quit. I’m **done**_.”

He sank down, chest heaving, and rose up outside his door solely for the satisfaction he’d get from slamming it shut.

Before he could so much as reach for the doorknob, his path was blocked by a dark figure in a bowler hat.

“ _No,_ ” Virgil gasped. Not now, not now, he couldn’t do this now.

“I’m sure you have no idea what I’m about to tell you,” Deceit lilted, leaning casually against the doorframe.

“ _I don’t_ —” He wasn’t going to sound like this in front of Deceit. _Pull yourself together._ “I d-don’t want to hear it.”

“Now is the best chance you’ll ever have.” The hallway was dim, but a yellow eye flashed knowingly at him through the dark. “You know it, don’t you? Strike while they’re confused. Strike while they’re _afraid_.”

Fear. It was a concept Deceit loved to throw around, but now that Virgil had seen it first hand in the other Sides’ faces, now that he knew what it felt like to put it there himself…

“I’ll pass,” Virgil whispered, wanting nothing more than to disappear on the spot.

“You’d be a fool to back down now.”

“And you’d be a fool to keep pushing me.” In full honesty, Virgil had no idea where this sudden determination was coming from. Maybe he just wanted to get the snake out of his way.

“Surely you —”

Virgil threw his hands into the air. “Shut _up!_ ” he shouted. The sound rang so loudly around them that it must have been audible from the commons. “I’m done with you, okay? I’m done with the lies and the fear and your stupid, useless rules. You don’t run this show anymore, and neither do I. _I. Am. **DONE**_.”

He crossed toward the door in two purposeful strides, and to his surprise, Deceit stepped out of the way. A sour look had twisted both sides of his face.

“You’ll regret this,” he promised. “If you give up, they’ll realize they don’t need you anymore. They don’t care about you. They’ll leave you here to die.”

Virgil wrenched the door open. “You know what?” he said, pausing on the threshold. He thought of all the times he'd held Thomas back in the name of keeping him safe. All the social events he'd missed and the questions he'd never asked. All the times Virgil silenced the others just to make himself heard. “I don’t think I care.”

The door flew closed. Virgil ducked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I know this doesn't exactly line up with publication dates (VidCon was in late June, and the first "Accepting Anxiety" video came out on July 10th). I had a hard time figuring out what other reason Thomas would have for... you know, leaving the house and seeing a big group of people, and this was the simplest solution.
> 
> I didn't bother explaining exactly how the Sides see what's going on outside of the mindscape to keep from screwing with the chapter's pacing. In my mind, they're able to see and feel everything Thomas does, but I don't picture it like an "Inside Out" panel situation; it's more of a direct link to Thomas's senses.
> 
> That said, this one was a roller coaster to write. Hopefully the length and content makes up for how long it took! All your comments on the last chapter have made my week, so don't hesitate to tell me your thoughts.


	10. Quick Update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a new chapter! I'll delete this as soon as the next one is published. (Edit: Oops, that last bit was a lie. All your comments were so sweet I decided to keep this posted.)

I'm not sure how many of you keep up with my upload schedule, but those of you who do know that I generally post a new chapter of this fic every three to five days. I figured a quick update was in order now that it's been over a week since I published the most recent one. It's getting closer to finals season here; that means I've got essays, projects, and exams piling up, and on top of that, I was just cast in a local musical that rehearses upwards of three times a week. To put it simply, I'm busy as heck, which means uploads are going to be a little more spaced out until school is over. Thanks in advance for your patience!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sides rush in to check on Virgil. Things go downhill fast.

“Goodness gracious,” Patton whispered, taking in the scene. Shards of glass had scattered all across the floor, but that didn’t stop him from walking determinedly forward — until Logan caught him by the back of his cardigan, that was.

“You could get cut,” he said quickly. Then he turned his attention to Virgil. “What happened here?”

“What do you want?” Virgil snapped in lieu of a response. His rage had bubbled up into his chest and morphed into some distorted kind of amusement. What were they here for? To kick him out for good? How considerate of them to break into his room just to let him know.

“We wanted to see if you’re okay!” Patton said. “Jeez, you really did a number on that clock. Did it hurt you?”

Virgil just glared at him with focused, calculating eyes. Patton was hardly a good actor, and he seemed genuine. Had Logan not told them yet? _Great,_ he thought, _we’ll watch the other shoe drop together._

“You’ve made quite the mess in here,” Roman observed. “You’re like a bull in a china shop! You know, if… if the china shop only had a clock in it.”

“Not your strongest comparison,” Logan muttered out the corner of his mouth.

Disregarding him, Roman snapped his fingers and the glass vanished, leaving the ruined clock behind.

“Alright, Mary Poppins,” Virgil said, voice low. “Wanna tell me why you’re really here?”

Patton tipped his head to the side. “What d’you mean?”

“Stop it.” Virgil’s fists were curled in his pockets. “Just cut to the chase.”

“What chase are we cutting to, exactly?” Roman inquired. “We only want to —”

“I said _stop it_ ,” Virgil growled. He swallowed, hard, shoving the distortion away but holding onto the anger that came with it. “Did you tell them or what?” he demanded of Logan.

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” Logan said, eyeing him with caution.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Why would I do that?”

Something about that question knocked Virgil’s train of thought off its tracks. Why _would_ Logan lie to him? Wasn’t he always one to push for absolute, unmitigated truth? There would be no reason for him to, unless —

“No.”

Logan blinked. “Virgil?”

A wary step backward. Then again: “No.”

“I’m confused,” Patton whispered. There was a dusting of darkness beneath his eyes that the rest of the room was too busy to notice.

“Don’t be,” Virgil said, his voice pure gravel. “I get it now. Can’t believe it took me this long to realize.”

“What on Earth are you talking… about?” The bravado in Roman’s tone seeped away when Virgil turned his head toward him. “Don’t go getting that look in your eyes, Hot Topic.”

“What look.” Virgil didn’t put an ounce of effort into making the question sound like one; all his energy was currently devoted to keeping a firm hand pressed to the lid of his temper.

“You know what look,” Roman said. When he didn’t get a response (save for a quick, impatient breath out) he went on. “The one you always used to do. The one that means you don’t trust us.”

Virgil clenched his teeth, then released them. His focus shifted back to Logan. “You’ve been screwing with me this whole time, haven’t you?”

“I really don’t know wh —”

A sharp _crack_ rang across the room, cutting him off as Virgil kicked impulsively at his desk chair. It skidded a few feet before tipping and clattering to the ground on its side. He watched with a distant sort of interest as the other three reacted to the noise.

Patton let out a squeak and clasped his hands together over his heart. Roman reflexively flung out an arm to shield him. Logan, however, jumped back a full two feet, fingers darting nervously up to tug at his tie. No one was oblivious to the eyeshadow that had sprung into existence on his face to accompany the response. The room was already getting to him.

“You’re putting on a good show,” Virgil said, “I’ll give you that. But I’d really appreciate it if you’d just give it up.”

“Virge, you’re not making any sense,” Patton said. He was pulling at each of the sleeves of his cardigan, back and forth and back and forth like he didn’t even notice what he was doing.

“I have to agree,” Roman said with a nod. “Specs over here isn't much for theatrics. What are you accusing him of?”

“How dense are you?” Virgil demanded. Part of him regretted it. The rest just wanted the truth. “We went through this, what, two days ago, and you’re still clueless?”

The prince furrowed his brow, his expression somewhere on the borderline of hurt and dubiety, but one glance at Logan said that the latter had already put two and two together.

“You can’t possibly believe —”

“Can’t I?” Virgil scoffed, rounding on him again. “I’m really not as dumb as you think I am.”

“I do not, to any degree, think you’re dumb.”

Christ, what was he trying to prove? Virgil bit down on the inside of his cheek, trying his damnedest not to give up on poise and break something. “Pretty sure I asked you to stop lying.”

“I’m not,” Logan insisted, just barely cracking under the room’s pressure. He straightened up and tried again. “I trust you know me well enough to understand that I have no reason to demean you with fabrications.”

Unable to take it anymore, Virgil took two seething steps across the room — and found himself frozen before he could reach his destination.

Roman had countered his movement by lunging forward, but Patton grabbed him by the wrist. They were both staring at Virgil like they hardly knew him, locked in a silent standoff, and Roman’s jaw was set in that unbearably determined way and Patton’s eyes were wide and sad and this was all too much, too much, too much.

With a breath so deep his lungs nearly burst from it, Virgil drew back against the wall.

“This, uh, doesn’t really add up,” Patton said, carefully letting go of Roman’s wrist. “What did Logan do to make you so upset?”

“Oh, _Logan_ didn’t do anything,” Virgil shot at him, eyes narrowed.

“Then why —?”

“Have you _honestly_ not figured it out yet?”

“This is more confusing than the fifth season of _Lost_.”

Logan’s voice cut through the jumble. “Virgil, I need you to look at me.” Even under all this pressure, even with the painfully dark circles beneath his eyes, he managed to hold tight to his composure. “I’m wearing a black shirt.”

What the hell did that have to do with anything? “Obviously —”

“You’re not listening.” There was a note of urgency underlying his words. “The rug beneath my feet is gray. I’m wearing glasses and a necktie. Think about what I’m saying.”

What was he saying, exactly? Useless facts instead of — oh. _Oh._

He was trying to prove that he wasn’t Deceit.

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that,” Virgil said. A sharp jerk passed through the room, throwing everyone but him slightly off balance as the gravity of his paranoia struck them without warning. Virgil made to move forward, to say something more, but he stopped dead when he caught a glint of something silver from the corner of his eye.

Roman had reached for his sword. Virgil’s gaze flickered in shock from the tense hand by the other Side’s waist to the wild confusion in his eyes. There was shadow under his now, too, just dark enough to prove that he was burning too hot. “Easy,” he said, as if he was trying to steady an unstable horse.

“Seriously?” Virgil said. “You say I should trust you, then you pull a _sword_ on me?”

Roman hung his head, but the blade didn’t waver.

“Put that away, Ro,” Patton said carefully, and his expression was far more hopeful than it should have been. “I’m sure we can just talk this out. Right?”

“Depends,” Virgil said, taking a step closer to the center of the room. He shoved aside a reminiscent spark of satisfaction when the other three shifted ever so slightly away. “You gonna keep that sword pointed at me?”

Roman lowered his hands just a little, but rather than yielding, Virgil pushed on. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” he said. “The way you’ve all been… I don’t know, holding your breath. Waiting for me to go back to how I used to be.”

“Virge —” Patton whispered.

He rounded on Logan next, who for once couldn’t seem to think up a reply. “But the second I think about opening up, you have to swoop in and _ruin_ it.”

“Virgil.” Patton’s voice had an edge to it.

“And now you’re all looking at me like I’m the villain again,” Virgil went on, his volume increasing, “just because you don’t understand what’s going on — and why would you, right? Because you never take the time to _ask_ before you pull out a goddamn _sword_ —”

“ _Anxiety!_ ” Patton shouted, and everything ground to a halt. He almost never called Virgil that anymore — not unless he was doing something really, really wrong — and that was all it took for Virgil to realize what he’d done.

At some point, he had come to stand in the center of the room. All three of the others were as far from him as they could get. Roman’s sword was still held upright like he didn’t have it in him to sheathe it; he wasn’t close enough to Logan to give him any cover, but he guarded Patton like his life depended on it. He peered up at Virgil through tousled bangs with eyes like a deer in headlights. Patton, behind him, just seemed disappointed, and somehow that was much worse.

Then there was Logan. It was no secret that Virgil’s room impacted him quicker than the others, but paired with all the rage and accusations, he looked ready to fall apart. His tie was askew; his glasses were lopsided; his fingers fidgeted desperately for something to ground him.

And Virgil just stood there, drinking in the mess he’d made.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. His hands slipped into his pockets as he dug his nails into his palms. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._

“It’s okay, kiddo,” Patton said too gently. He motioned for Roman to put down his sword, just barely smiling when the latter finally complied. “Why don’t we take this, um…”

“Outside,” Roman agreed, casting a wary glance around the room. With a snap, the darkness swirled into light and brought them to the commons.

As the adrenaline drained from his veins, Virgil felt himself stumbling and collapsed onto the stairs. Beside him, Logan leaned carefully against the railing, tweaking at his glasses and tucking in his shirt. A hand came up to scrub beneath his eyes despite the skin there having cleared. The sight put a lump in Virgil’s throat.

“Logan, I —”

“Save your apologies for when all this is settled,” Logan replied. It came out tight. He cleared his throat.

“Is everyone alright?” Patton asked the room at large.

Roman dragged a hand through his hair. “I suppose so,” he said. “We’re all in one piece, are we not?”

“In that case,” Patton said, his worry replaced by a grim seriousness. “Deceit!”

Everyone stared at him for a moment, puzzled as to who he was talking to.

Then another Logan materialized on the sofa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your patience! This chapter was particularly tough to write, and paired with the usual end-of-school mania, it took me WAY longer than usual to get it done.
> 
> I hate leaving off on another cliffhanger, so to make up for it, the next chapter will pick up right where this one left off. Brace yourselves, comrades (and leave some comments!).


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this final chapter, Virgil must come face to face with both Deceit and his past in a way that's less than ideal for all parties involved.

The silence that hung over the commons lasted an eternity. Each Side looked back and forth between the Logan at the railing and the Logan on the couch like they were watching a game of tennis, and the Logans themselves merely stared at one another. The air was thick with tension.

“I’ve seen enough poorly written TV dramas to know how this is gonna go,” Virgil grumbled, pressing the side of his head against the bannister, “and I’m honestly not in the mood for it.”

Roman’s hand was already back on the hilt of his sword. “I will not hesitate to impale the imposter!” he declared, ignoring Patton as he rushed over to swat the weapon away.

“Don’t bother,” Virgil said tonelessly. The space in his chest that had housed fury mere minutes ago now felt hollow. He raised a hand and pointed to the Side on his left. “That one’s real.”

The Logan on the couch drew himself up in indignation.

“How do you know?” Patton asked. He sidled half a step closer to Virgil.

“Because,” he said, glaring at the sofa, “the real Logan doesn’t look at me like that.” _Like he’s known me for a hundred years. Like I’ve never once failed to disappoint him during all that time._

“I’m, ah, pretty sure they look the same.” It appeared no amount of suspicious squinting would help Roman pick up on the differences. Virgil just shook his head.

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” the Logan on the couch insisted, a crease forming between his brows.

“Give it up, Deceit,” Virgil said to the painting over his head. “None of us want to play this game.”

Everyone turned expectantly to the sofa, but their furtive glances at the stairs made it more than obvious that no one was entirely certain Virgil was right.

Then the Logan rolled his eyes, and the facade melted away.

His expression was the first thing to change. Confusion and worry gave way to something much worse as his frown bled into a smirk; a small gasp worked its way from Patton’s mouth in response, but the impostor was unfazed. They watched in horror as the glasses on his nose vanished into thin air to reveal a sickly, slit-pupiled yellow eye.

The skin of his left cheek was next, turning green and smooth and scaly everywhere but around that horrible eye, where it went a deep shade of pink instead. A cape slid up from behind him to cover the polo and tie, and from its pockets he pulled a pair of thick yellow gloves. With a flourish, he procured a black bowler hat from seemingly nowhere and tipped it smoothly onto his head, sinking into the couch cushions like he owned the place.

“So nice to see you all again,” he cooed. Virgil was the only one who didn’t draw back.

“I — Deceit?” was all the real Logan managed to say.

“How did we manage to fall for this _again?_ ” Roman said in exasperation. His weight bounced from foot to foot in an effort to contain his restlessness.

“You didn’t,” Virgil told him, pointedly looking away from the couch. “I did.” He stuck his thumbnail between his teeth and bit down. “God, I’m such an idiot.” There were so many signs, so many red flags he hadn’t been vigilant enough to notice.

“That’s not true in the slightest,” Deceit said. His smirk flickered for half a second when Roman growled at him.

“Is there a reason you’re here?” Logan asked impatiently. “Other than to needlessly torment us, of course.”

“Bold of you to assume you’re the one he’s tormenting,” Virgil muttered. He realized a second too late that he’d said it loud enough for Patton to hear.

“What do you mean?”

Virgil dug his fingers into the fibers of the carpet beneath him. “Nothing,” he said, and Patton fixed him with a Dad Stare.

“‘Tormenting,’” Deceit scoffed. His elbow was propped lazily on the arm of the couch, and his chin rested in palm. “That’s obviously what I’m doing here.”

“Alright, then what the hell else would you call it?” Virgil demanded, finally swiveling around to look at him.

“Let’s take a step back,” Logan said quickly, “so you can fill the rest of us in. What’s going on?”

With a sigh, Virgil bent forward and let his forehead fall against his knees. He took a breath. Then he stood, determined to keep his cool.

“Deceit was pretending to be Logan,” he said steadily, “to screw with me. He brought me to Logan’s room, and I…” _Tried to tell the truth and was immediately cut off. How did I not notice?_ “I’d really love to know why he’s letting me tell you this.”

“Hold on,” Logan said. “I’ve been in my room all day. What did this one look like, exactly?”

“Uh… telescope by the window, stars on the ceiling? Lots of silver and blue?”

Logan looked thoroughly disconcerted. He arched an eyebrow at Deceit. “You couldn’t have broken in,” he said, sounding like he’d just put on his sleuthing cap. “I would have noticed. There were no signs of forced entry, either… but Virgil’s description seems accurate, which would suggest that —”

“He made a copy of your room,” Virgil finished. His fingers fiddled with the zipper on his sleeve as he thought back to the oddly quick, familiar route he had walked to get there. _We never even left the subconscious, did we?_ “That’s why it took you so long to answer the door. You were changing your own room to make it look like Logan’s.”

“You’d make a marvelous set designer,” Roman mused. He was standing beside Patton now, and the latter gave him a quick jab in the ribs with his elbow. “Sorry, sorry, not the time.”

“But why bother with all this?” Patton asked, twisting the sleeve of his cardigan around his hand. “And why just go after Virgil? It’s not like you two have any more reason to fight than the rest of us.”

Virgil pinched at the bridge of his nose and said nothing.

“Might as well come clean,” Deceit said to him with an infuriating shrug.

“Might as well shut it,” Virgil shot back.

“Come clean about what?” Patton asked, and it took all of Virgil’s self control to refrain from crossing the room to slap Deceit in his stupid face.

“Nope,” Virgil said, biting his lip and tipping his face toward the ceiling. “We’re not doing this, sorry.”

Roman huffed. “Well, now you’ve got us curious.”

 _Of course you’re curious._ This whole thing was probably some elaborate setup to force Virgil to confess at the worst possible moment. He shot Deceit a look, but the snake had busied himself with pretending to inspect his fingernails (which was ridiculous, considering the fact that he was wearing gloves).

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Virgil said. The prince just rolled his eyes. “Look, I — it really doesn’t matter.”

“Not at all,” Deceit said with a nod.

Logan took a tentative step closer to the center of the room in an effort to better assess the situation. His eyes flickered over Deceit’s smug grin and analyzed Virgil’s flustered glances in his direction in an instant. “Are you keeping something from us?”

“Of course he’s not,” Patton said immediately. “There’s no need for secrets, we’re all friends! Right, Virge?”

“It’s not as if he hasn’t kept them before,” Roman reasoned. “Who’s to say —”

“ _Guys._ ” Virgil pressed two fingers to his temple, taking half a second to collect his thoughts before digging up some semblance of an explanation. “You know what? Fine. I — I used to be a Dark Side. Maybe I still am one, I don’t know how it works, but — Pat, please don’t interrupt, just let me — thanks. But yeah, I was working with Deceit to… I don’t know. Make you guys miserable. You never listened to me, but Deceit did, so I — it doesn’t matter. What matters is I believed him. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry.”

A dull ringing grew in his ears as he finished. He should have felt anxious. He should have felt _terrified._ But honestly? Aside from a slight tingling in his hands, he felt nothing. Maybe that anticipatory torture from Deceit was good for something after all.

“Virge, I…” Patton said, looking close to tears. “You never said anything.”

“Why on Earth would you keep this from us?” Roman’s his usual gusto was replaced with something uncharacteristically fragile.

“It’s my fault,” Virgil said again.

“Your — what?” Logan said blankly. These three simple words seemed difficult for him to process. “Virgil, he’s _manipul_ —”

His hand clapped against his mouth.

“That’s enough from the peanut gallery,” Deceit interjected, clenching his right fist. In the time it took Virgil to blink, everyone’s hands had flown to their faces, expressions confused and vaguely panicked, fruitlessly trying to force out muffled protests through their palms.

“Don’t —” Virgil began, lunging forward, but Deceit jumped up and sidestepped him, causing him to nearly trip headfirst over the coffee table.

“It would work to your benefit if you heard me out,” he said. “I’ve got so little to say and so much time. It’s been such a short while since we’ve had the chance to really _talk,_ hasn’t it?”

The longer he spoke, the stranger the atmosphere surrounding the commons began to feel. The chill in the air that usually accompanied Deceit’s presence had increased tenfold; Virgil was pretty sure that in a physical plane, his breath would have fogged up before his mouth. The light that usually filled the room was eerily dim, as if someone had thrown a blanket over all the windows and lamps. Everything seemed dark and endless; the hallway, the stairs, even the kitchen a few feet to his left. He could tell the others were feeling it, too — not just the cold, but the emptiness that came with it.

A single glance at the three of them was enough to tell Virgil this was more than they could handle. They hadn’t stopped fighting Deceit’s influence, but it was clear that they were afraid. Patton had fallen to his knees, and Roman crouched worriedly beside him as Logan looked on from the other side of the stairs. Virgil could feel their fear in his chest like a hundred pound weight against his lungs.

“You let them go,” he said, forcing his voice not to shake. “This is, like, gratuitously villainous, even for you. There are better ways to get me to listen.”

“You’re right,” Deceit said. A twisted bitterness laced his tone. “Intimidation is a terrible strategy. I’ve _never_ used it, and I certainly haven’t advised you to do the same.”

Virgil squinted at him. “Your lies are getting sloppy.”

“No they’re not.”

Then he noticed how labored Deceit’s breathing had become, how hunched his shoulders were.

“This is too much for you, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” The way he incessantly tugged at his right glove said otherwise. It didn’t take much for Virgil to put two and two together.

Taking on another Side’s appearance was challenging. None of them were strangers to shapeshifting — in fact, it seemed to come easiest to Roman and Deceit, likely due to how blurred the line is between acting and lying — but too much of anything can turn it sour. All this paired with the effort it took to silence the others so frequently (and in such great numbers) did not bode well for Deceit.

“As usual,” he said, clearly trying not to grit his teeth, “you’re speaking absolute nonsense.” A short breath in through his nose, and then: “Don’t you see what you’re doing to them?”

“What _I’m_ doing to —?”

“You’ve spent years doing nothing but hurt them,” Deceit said. He stalked around the coffee table, a viper closing in on its prey. “Haven’t you watched this scene play out enough times? It’s never going to end differently than you fear it will.”

“You’re lying.”

“How can you be so sure?”

_Because you have tells when you aren’t, and you’re not using any of them. You’re too exhausted to tell the truth. I know you better than you think I do._

“All you do is cause them pain,” Deceit went on, still slithering forward. The darkness around him was denser now; an unsettling vignette that made it impossible to look away. “You’ve betrayed their trust and broken their hearts. Do you really think they’ll want anything to do with you after this? Even if they do, things will never be the same.”

 _Let them speak for themselves,_ Virgil thought, but the words didn’t pass his lips. What would be the point? Deceit wouldn’t comply, and truthfully, Virgil wasn’t too sure he wanted to hear what the others had to say. He scratched out the demand and tried a question instead. “Why do you want me to come back so badly?”

Maybe it was a trick of the light (or lack thereof), but something about Deceit just barely seemed to falter. “I don’t,” he said evenly. “We don’t need you. We never have.”

Virgil glanced at the others, at their wide eyes and pained expressions. A terribly similar image drifted to the front of his mind of faces he’d spent months trying to forget, and he dragged his attention back to Deceit.

“You’ve always told me I’m nothing to you,” he said. “To _any_ of you. This is just making you look weak and desperate.”

Deceit’s eye flashed. “I spent years looking after your pitiful self,” he said, gripping the hem of his cape with his free hand so hard that his knuckles must have gone white under their glove. “You spent just as much time keeping an eye on them. And then you left.”

That was a truth. An infinitesimal, one-sided truth.

“These dolts may have accepted you,” the snake said, sincerity vanishing, “but they’ll never love you. Now that you mention it, maybe your return isn’t such a bad idea after all. Back in the dark, back with us… it’s where you belong, isn’t it?”

It was a lie. That was obvious enough. But when Virgil opened his mouth to respond, all he managed was a shaky breath before closing it again. In a way, Deceit had a point; he’d let the others down time and time again, and this confession may very well have shattered their trust in him. He took a small step forward, then another one back, and Deceit just watched him, waiting for the verdict to turn in his favor.

Then a single word cut through the emptiness, ringing around the commons like a bell.

“No.”

And Virgil froze, because he wasn’t the one who said it.

Roman had broken free of Deceit’s hold. His hand jerked toward his mouth like it was drawn there by a magnet, but he shoved it down and grabbed onto his sword instead. There was a clean-sounding _swish_ as the weapon was unsheathed and pointed, with perfect steadiness, right at Deceit’s chest.

“Don’t worry, Princey, you’re not interrupting,” Deceit grumbled, making to advance, but he didn’t manage more than a step in Roman’s direction before the blade was level with his nose.

“I _said_ —” he wiggled the sword for emphasis “— no.”

Although Deceit’s gaze was scathing, Virgil was by no means oblivious to the way his fist shook. He clenched it tighter; Roman’s arm flinched once more, but the sword didn’t stray.

“Virgil,” Roman said quickly, “you know he’s lying, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Without hesitation, Roman thrust the blade into Deceit’s stomach.

Time ground to a standstill as a collective gasp passed over the room. For the first time since Virgil had met him, Deceit seemed completely caught off guard; his mouth had fallen open in shock. Roman yanked the sword back and sheathed it, looking satisfied, and Deceit reflexively pressed both hands to the site of a nonexistent wound.

“You’ve truly bested me,” he said, straightening up. “As a material being with a physical body, I’m bleeding out painfully as we speak.”

“Oh, I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Roman said casually. “Though I’m sure that would have been fun. May I direct your attention to your right hand, however, which is currently held to your stomach rather than balled into a fist?”

Deceit mouthed at him wordlessly like a fish out of water, then turned to face the Sides he’d been controlling seconds prior. Both of them were back on their feet, dusting themselves off and checking to be sure the other wasn’t hurt, and the very sight of them made Deceit look more frustrated than Virgil had ever seen him.

“As I said, my goal wasn’t to hurt you.” Roman made a valiant effort to wrestle the pride from his tone. “Just to distract you long enough to make you let them go.”

“Oh _drat,_ ” Deceit drawled, stitching his composure back together in an instant. “Foiled again. My master plan has fallen to pieces at the tip of your sword.”

A few moments of silence stretched across the room, but they were broken by Roman’s quick (and dramatically loud) strides toward the stairs.

“Dude, what’re you —?”

The prince turned his back to Virgil, planted his feet, and once again drew his sword — not in an offensive position, but a defensive one. The time to attack was over. Now, he was going to protect.

“I think it’s about time for you to leave.”

“We’re all well aware that you’re lying,” Logan said matter-of-factly, shifting slightly to his right to stand beside him. “To us and to Virgil.”

“Yeah,” Patton agreed. He moved so that the three of them formed a sort of wall, barring Deceit off from Virgil entirely. “And we’re not gonna let you talk to him that way.” 

Deceit tweaked the brim of his hat impatiently. “As if any of that matters,” he said. “You’ve seen now how quickly dear old Anxiety will turn on you with a little incentive. We’ll be here when you decide you’re done with him.”

“Can it, Lie in the Sky,” Roman said dismissively. “ _We’re_ done with _you._ ”

Deceit flashed him a sneer. Then, with a final, unreadable glance toward the silent Side on the stairs, he sank out.

The moment he vanished, Virgil spun around to face the others. “I’m so sor —”

“It’s alright,” Logan said, stopping him before he could launch into speech, “really, Virgil. None of us blame you.”

“You should.”

“Don’t say that.” Patton’s fingers twitched as though they’d like nothing more than to reach out and touch, steady, hold some part of Virgil. But he held himself back. “It wasn’t your fault.”

A short, mirthless chuckle. “Maybe not at first,” Virgil said. “But I — for _years_ I was working with him, trying so hard to screw you over, we — even when you were nice, I never _stopped_ —”

“Virgil.” Roman’s voice was firm and clear. He knelt down to Virgil’s level. Placed a hand on his knee. “You are not the villain here.” He pretended to ignore the sharp intake of breath that greeted these words.

“Deceit is a master of manipulation,” Logan chimed in. “It’s entirely understandable that you would have listened to him, especially given how we were treating you at the time.”

“That doesn’t mean it was right.”

Patton took a moment to settle down onto the step, then nudged carefully at his shoulder until Virgil begrudgingly looked him in the eye. “Listen to me, Virge,” he said. “I don’t care what you did. I don’t even care why you did it. The important thing is that you’re trying to be better. And you really are better! You come to movie night, you work with us, you hardly _ever_ fight with Roman anymore —”

“Whether or not you were a Dark Side,” Logan said before Patton could ramble too far, “that’s in the past.”

Virgil closed his eyes and held his breath.

“We chose to accept you,” Roman went on. “You chose to _be_ accepted.”

He knew what was coming, but that didn’t mean he was prepared.

“Deceit is a big old liar,” Patton assured him. “We all love you a whole bunch! You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

His heart beat so loudly he couldn’t even tell who was the one to say what came next.

“ _You’re one of us._ ”

The warmth in those words, that unwavering certainty, was enough to make Virgil break down. He took a shuddering breath and finally let the tears he’d been holding onto for days slip silently out, drawing tracks through his eyeshadow and down his cheeks. Without a word, Patton wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.

Telling the truth had turned over a stone that crawled with worries Virgil didn’t want to confront. There were dozens of questions he’d left unanswered and plenty of problems he’d swept out of sight. But as he sat there with his fingers gripping the back of Patton’s cardigan, as he felt Roman’s steady hand on his knee and Logan’s supportive grasp on his shoulder, he realized just how lucky he’d been to stumble into this mess — and really, he’d take this over living a lie any day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... that's the end! I didn't initially plan to end it here, but the more I wrote, the more I realized that this was turning into one big finale. If I'm struck by a wave of future inspiration, this might turn into a series in a couple of months, and because of that, the conclusion may have left a handful of questions unanswered. Feel free to ask them!
> 
> That being said, thank you SO MUCH for all the love you guys have given this fic over the past few months. You're the reason my tiny story ever made it past one chapter, and the reason I wrote it to completion. To those of you who managed to stick around through the increasingly sporadic updates during musical and exam seasons, I thank you most of all.
> 
> Last but certainly not least, if you've got any suggestions for future fics you'd like me to write, you can leave them in the comments or on my tumblr (@thosemeddlingfandoms).


End file.
